THE  HORSE  IN  AMERICA 


The   Horse 

IN  AMERICA 

A  PRACTICAL  TREATISE  ON  THE 
ARIOUS    TYPES    COMMON    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES, 
WITH  SOMETHING  OF  THEIR  HISTORY  AND 
VARYING  CHARACTERISTICS 


BY 


JOHN  GILMER  SPEED 


Illustrated 


NEW  YORK 

McCLURE,  PHILLIPS  &  CO. 
MCMV 


v-  3,  v  i 

VsS-7 


*****  noon 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
McCLURE,   PHILLIPS  &  CO. 

Published,  October,  1905 


THIS  BOOK 

THE  AUTHOR  DEDICATES  TO  HIS  FRIEND 

COLONEL  CLARENCE  R.  EDWARDS,  U.  S.  A. 

WHOSE  INHERITED  LOVE  FOR  HORSES  HAS 

BEEN   CULTIVATED   BY   STUDY   AND 

STRENGTHENED  BY  PRACTICE 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

THERE  have  been  so  many  books  written  about 
horses  that  in  offering  a  new  one  I  feel  that  an  ex- 
planation, if  not  an  apology,  is  due.  And  I  am 
embarrassed  as  to  how  to  frame  the  explanation 
without  seeming  to  reflect  on  the  books  previous- 
ly given  to  the  public.  Nothing  could  be  further 
from  my  desire.  Most  of  these  previous  books 
have  been  devoted  to  special  kinds  or  types  of 
horses  without  any  effort  to  cover  a  very  broad 
field.  Some  others  have  been  frankly  partizan  with 
the  avowed  purpose  of  proving  that  this  type  or 
that  was  the  only  one  that  was  worth  serious  con- 
sideration. All  these  are  interesting,  but  valuable 
chiefly  to  the  careful  student  bent  on  going  into 
the  subject  of  horse  breeding  and  horse  training 
in  all  of  its  branches.  To  do  this  an  ordinary  reader 
would  have  to  study  half  a  hundred  books  with 


iv  THE   HORSE   IN  AMERICA 

the  danger  of  becoming  confused  in  the  multi- 
plicity of  theories  and  conflicting  statements  and 
with  the  final  result  of  knowing  as  little  in  the  end 
as  in  the  beginning.  In  this  modest  little  volume  I 
have  endeavored  briefly  to  show  how  the  horses  in 
America  have  been  developed  and  have  come  to  be 
what  they  are  to-day.  If  I  have  succeeded  even 
partly  in  my  purpose  I  will  have  my  ample  re- 
ward; if  I  fail,  my  book  will  end  on  a  few  dusty 
library  shelves  along  with  hundreds  of  others  on 
kindred  subjects. 

There  is  a  peculiar  characteristic  of  most  writ- 
ers on  the  horse.  Let  a  man  be  ever  so  fair  in  his 
ordinary  business  and  social  life,  he  is  apt,  when 
he  becomes  interested  in  horses,  to  throw  away 
his  judicial  attitude  and  change  into  an  advocate 
who  sees  only  one  side.  When  his  interest  in  that 
one  side  carries  him  to  the  length  of  writing,  the 
tendency  is  to  be  so  partizan  that  he  is  even  dis- 
courteous to  others  who  do  not  agree  with  him. 
This  queer  disposition  to  wrangle  and  dispute  is 
due,  no  doubt,  to  the  fact  that  horse  breeding  is 
not  yet  by  any  means  an  exact  science,  and  the 
data,  guiding  even  those  who  exercise  the  greatest 


INTRODUCTION  V 

care  and  intelligence,  is  not  trustworthy.  We  do 
not  know  with  certainty  how  any  of  the  great 
types  has  been  produced,  for  the  beginnings  of  all 
of  them  are  covered  up  by  fictions,  based  on  tra- 
ditions not  recorded,  but  handed  down  from  gen- 
eration to  generation,  or  on  fictions  that  have 
been  manufactured  with  ingenious  mendacity. 
All  this  is  a  pity,  but  there  is  no  help  for  it  now. 
What  we  can  do  is  to  tell  what  is  true,  show  what 
has  been  demonstrated  by  known  achievements 
and  go  on  working  in  the  material  that  we  have  at 
hand,  so  that  we  may  assist  in  increasing  the  great 
property  value  that  this  country  has  in  its  horses. 
That  property  value  is  immense.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  1905,  the  Agricultural  Department  esti- 
mated that  the  (taxable)  value  of  the  horses  in  the 
United  States  was  $1,200,310,020,  and  of  mules 
$251,840,378,  or  a  total  of  $1,452,150,398.  This 
is  only  about  eight  per  cent  less  than  the  aggre- 
gate value  of  the  cows,  beef  cattle,  sheep  and 
hogs  in  the  whole  country.  Merely,  therefore, 
from  an  economic  standpoint  this  question  of 
preserving  and  increasing  the  value  of  horses  is 
one  of  prime  importance.  At  this  particular  time 


VI  THE   HORSE   IN  AMERICA 

it  is  a  question  not  only  of  increasing,  but  even  of 
preserving,  this  value,  for  new  agencies  are  com- 
ing into  competition  with  horses  for  many  pur- 
poses and  are  being  substituted  for  horses  in 
many  others.  The  automobiles  and  the  electric 
tramways  are  not  merely  passing  fads.  They 
have  come  to  stay  until  substituted  by  something 
else  which  has  not  yet  swum  into  our  ken.  The 
common  horses  will  soon  be  obsolete  except  on 
our  farms,  ana  even  on  the  farms  they  ought  to  be 
given  up,  for,  notwithstanding  all  the  great 
breeding  establishments  in  the  various  states,  by 
far  the  greater  number  of  the  horses  are  bred  on 
the  farms  at  present.  That  should  always  be  the 
case;  but  it  may  not  be  so  when  the  time  comes 
that  is  rapidly  approaching  and  a  common  horse 
will  have  next  to  no  value  at  all.  Farmers  more 
than  others  need  to  realize  that  only  such  horses 
should  be  bred  that  will  have  a  value  for  other 
than  strictly  farm  work,  for  a  farmer  should  be 
able  to  sell  his  surplus  stock  with  a  fair  profit.  If 
farmers  have  not]  the  foresight  to  anticipate  the 
inevitable,  then  they  will  have  to  accept  the  loss 
that  will  surely  ensue. 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

Every  breeder  whether  farmer,  amateur  or 
professional,  should  breed  to  a  type.  Any  other 
method  is  merely  a  haphazard  waste  of  time  and 
money.  When  I  say  breed  to  a  type,  I  mean  always 
a  reproducing  type.  There  are  several  such  in  this 
country,  a  few  of  which  belong  to  us,  though  most 
of  them  are  of  foreign  origin.  The  Thoroughbred 
is  English,  the  Percheron  is  French,  the  Hackney 
is  English,  the  Orlof  is  Russian,  the  Clydes- 
dale is  English,  the  Morgan  is  American, 
the  Denmark  is  American,  the  Clay-Arabian  is 
American,  and  the  standard  bred  trotter  a 
kind  of  "  go-as-you-please  "  mongrel ;  nevertheless 
he  is  considered  by  many  the  noblest  achieve- 
ment of  intelligent  American  horse  breeding. 
When  any  one  goes  in  for  horse  breeding  on 
either  a  small  or  a  large  scale,  whether  with  one 
mare  or  with  one  hundred  mares,  he  should,  in 
selecting  mates,  always  strive  for  a  definite  type 
in  the  foal.  If  intelligence  and  correct  informa- 
tion be  guided  by  experience  the  results  are  apt  to 
be  pleasantly  satisfactory. 

The  first  cardinal  principle  of  horse  breeding 
was  formulated  in  England  a  century  and  a  half 


Vlll  THE     HORSE     IN    AMERICA 

ago  in  the  expression:  "Like  begets  like."  This 
rule  has  been  followed  in  the  creation  and  main- 
tenance of  all  the  great  horse  types  in  the  civil- 
ized world,  and  singularly  enough  all  of  them, 
both  great  and  small  in  size,  have  descended 
from  Arab  and  Barb  stock.  This  concise  rule  of 
breeding,  "  Like  begets  like,"  has  been  misunder- 
stood by  some  who  did  not  take  a  sufficiently 
comprehensive  view  of  it.  This  likeness  does  not 
refer  merely  to  one  thing;  not  to  blood  alone,  nor 
to  conformation,  nor  to  performance;  but  to 
blood  and  to  conformation  and  performance,  but 
most  of  all  to  blood.  Where  blood  lines,  as  to  like- 
ness, are  disregarded,  and  conformation  and  per- 
formance are  alone  considered,  the  result  is  sure 
to  be  a  lot  of  mongrels,  some  of  them,  it  is  true,  of 
most  surpassing  excellence,  but  as  a  general 
thing,  quite  incapable  of  reproducing  themselves 
with  any  reasonable  certainty. 

The  great  danger  always  in  breeding  horses 
and  other  domestic  animals  with  the  idea  of  im- 
proving a  type  or  a  family,  is  that  mongrels  may 
be  produced.  A  mongrel  is  an  animal  that  results 
from  the  union  of  dissimilar  and  heterogeneous 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

blood.  An  improved  and  established  reproducing 
type  has  hitherto  been,  and  probably  always  will 
be,  the  result  of  the  mingling  of  similar  and  ho- 
mogeneous blood,  crossed  and  recrossed  until 
the  similar  becomes  consanguineous.  The  Arab 
and  Barb,  I  have  said,  are  the  foundation  in 
blood  of  all  the  great  types  from  the  Percheron  to 
the  Thoroughbred.  To  be  sure,  other  and  dissim- 
ilar blood  was  used  in  the  beginning  of  the  mak- 
ing of  all  the  types,  but  there  was  such  crossing 
and  recrossing,  such  grading  up  by  a  selection  of 
mates,  that  the  blood  became  similar,  and  the 
rule:  "Like begets  like,"  being  constantly  follow- 
ed a  type  becomes  established. 

When  a  type  has  been  established  and  is  of  un- 
questioned value  to  the  world,  it  should  be  pre- 
served most  carefully.  The  French,  the  Russians, 
the  Germans  and  the  Austrians  do  this  by  means 
of  Governmental  breeding  farms.  The  English 
accomplish  the  same  result  by  reason  of  the  cus- 
tom of  primogeniture  and  entailed  estates.  Con- 
tinuity in  breeding  is  essential  to  its  complete  suc- 
cess. In  this  country  when  a  breeder  dies,  his  col- 
lection of  horses  is  usually  dispersed  by  sale  to 


X  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

settle  his  estate.  Considering  our  lack  of  Govern- 
mental assistance  we  have  done  amazingly  well 
to  become  the  greatest  horse-producing  country 
in  the  world.  Our  greatness,  however,  is  mainly 
due  to  the  vastness  of  our  area,  the  fertility  of  our 
soil  and  consequent  cheapness  of  pasturage,  and 
to  the  high  average  intelligence  of  the  American 
people.  We  have  not  exercised  the  scientific  intel- 
ligence in  breeding  that  some  European  people 
have  done.  So  as  breeders  we  have  not  a  great 
deal  to  be  proud  of.  We  have  done  better  as  to 
quantity  than  quality.  But  we  can  do  better,  and 
I  am  sure  that  we  will,  for  the  time  is  hard  upon 
us  when  the  four-year-old  horse  that  is  not  worth 
$300  in  the  market  will  not  be  worth  his  keep. 

There  is,  however,  an  important  public  aspect 
to  this  question  of  improving  and  maintaining  the 
breed  of  horses.  Without  good  horses  for  cavalry 
the  efficiency  of  an  army  is  very  much  crippled. 
When  our  Civil  War  broke  out  horse-back  riding 
in  the  North  had  as  an  exercise  for  pleasure  been 
generally  given  up,  and  nine-tenths  of  the  men 
who  went  into  the  service  on  the  Union  side  could 
not  ride.  On  the  other  hand,  at  least  seven-tenths 


INTRODUCTION  XI 

of  those  who  went  into  the  Confederate  army 
could  ride.  Moreover,  the  North  had  a  scant  sup- 
ply of  horses  fit  for  cavalry,  while  in  many  States 
of  the  South  such  animals  were  abundant.  Here 
we  had  on  one  side  the  material  for  a  quickly- 
made  cavalry,  and  on  the  other  side  practically 
no  material  either  in  horses  or  men  for  such  a 
branch  of  the  army.  Critics  of  the  war  attribute 
the  early  successes  of  the  South  to  the  superior- 
ity of  the  cavalry.  The  Northern  side  was  obliged 
to  wait  for  nearly  two  years  before  that  arm  of 
the  service  was  equal  to  that  of  the  South.  Thus, 
this  distressful  war  was  probably  continued  for 
more  than  a  year  longer  than  it  would  have  been 
had  the  two  sides  in  the  beginning  been  equally 
supplied  with  riders  and  riding  horses.  And  in 
the  Japanese-Russian  War,  now  in  progress,  the 
Japanese  are  hampered  dreadfully  by  their  lack 
of  cavalry.  They  have  beaten  the  Russians  time 
and  again  only  to  let  the  Russians  get  away  be- 
cause of  the  Japanese  inability,  from  lack  of 
horses  and  horsemen,  to  cut  off  the  line  of  re- 
treat. It  is  a  most  distressingly  expensive  thing  to 
be  without  horses  in  time  of  war;  unless  proper 


Xll  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

horses  are  abundant  in  time  of  peace,  and  the 
people  who  own  them  use  them  under  the  saddle, 
when  war  comes  there  is  a  scarcity  of  men  who 
know  how  to  ride.  Good  material  for  cavalry  in 
horses  and  men  is  an  excellent  national  invest- 
ment. 

In  addition  to  my  chapters  on  the  breeding  of 
various  types  I  have  added  several  others  on  the 
keeping,  handling  and  using  of  horses  so  that  if 
an  owner  have  only  this  one  book,  he  may  be  able 
to  have  at  least  a  little  useful  information  of  many 
sorts  and  kinds. 


THE  HORSE  IN  AMERICA 


CHAPTER  ONE 

PREHISTORIC    AND    EARLY    HORSES 

THE  paleontologists  tell  us  that  the  rocks  abound 
with  fossils  which  show  that  Equidae  were  numer- 
ous all  over  America  in  the  Eocene  period.  These 
were  the  ancestors  of  the  horse  that  was  first  do- 
mesticated, and  though  there  were  millions  of 
them  on  the  Continent  of  North  America  in  the 
period  mentioned  there  were  no  horses  here  at  all 
when  Columbus  made  his  great  discovery,  and  the 
first  explorers  came  to  find  out  what  this  new  In- 
dia was  like.  The  remains  of  the  prehistoric 
horse,  when  first  found,  baffled  the  naturalists, 
and  he  was  called  by  Richard  Owen  Hyracothe- 
rium  or  Hyrax-like-Beast.  The  first  fossils  dis- 
covered showed  that  the  horse  was  millions  and 
millions  of  years  ago  under  twenty-four  inches  in 
stature,  with  a  spreading  foot  and  five  toes.  In  his 
development  from  this  beginning  the  horse  fur- 


4  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

nishes  one  of  the  most  interesting  examples  of 
evolution.  When  he  had  five  toes  he  lived  in  low- 
lying,  marshy  land  and  the  toes  were  needed  so 
that  he  could  get  about.  He  had  a  short  neck  and 
short  jaws,  as  longer  were  not  needed  to  enable 
him  to  feed  on  the  easily  reached  herbage.  As  the 
earth  became  harder,  the  waters  receding,  his 
neck  and  jaws  lengthened,  as  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  reach  further  to  crop  the  less  luxuriant  and 
shorter  grasses.  He  lost,  also  one  toe  after  another 
so  that  he  might  travel  faster  and  so  escape  his 
enemies.  These  toes,  of  course,  did  not  disappear 
all  at  once,  but  grew  shorter,  until  they  hung 
above  the  ground.  The  "splint  bones"  on  a 
horse's  legs  are  the  remains  of  two  of  these  once 
indispensable  toes,  while  the  hoof  is  the  nail  of  the 
last  remaining  toe. 

As  the  neck  of  the  horse  grew  longer  and  two 
toes  had  been  dropped,  the  legs  lengthened  and 
by  the  time  he  became  what  the  scientists  call  a 
"  Neohipparion "  he  was  about  three  feet  high, 
and  his  skeleton  bore  a  very  striking  resemblance 
to  that  of  the  horse  of  to-day.  The  teeth  also 
changed  with  the  rest  of  the  animal.  In  the  earli- 


PREHISTORIC     AND     EARLY     HORSES  5 

est  specimens  discovered  the  teeth  were  short 
crowned  and  covered  with  low,  rounded  knobs, 
similar  to  the  teeth  of  other  omnivorous  animals, 
such  as  monkeys  and  hogs,  and  were  quite  differ- 
ent from  the  grinders  of  the  modern  animal. 
When  the  marshy  lands  of  the  too-well  watered 
earth  had  changed  into  grassy  plains  the  teeth  of 
the  horse  also  changed  from  short  crowned  to 
long  crowned,  so  that  they  could  clip  the  shorter 
and  dryer  grasses  and  grind  them  up  by  thorough 
mastication  into  the  nutritious  food  required  for 
the  animal's  well  being. 

Indeed,  the  whole  history  of  the  evolution  of 
the  horse  by  natural  selection  is  a  complete  illus- 
tration of  adaptation  to  environment.  Even  to- 
day in  the  Falkland  Islands,  where  the  whole  sur- 
face is  soft,  mossy  bogland,  the  horses'  feet  grow 
to  over  twelve  inches  in  length,  and  curl  up  so 
that  frequently  they  can  hardly  walk  upon  them. 
Where  we  use  horses  on  hard,  artificial  roads  it  is 
necessary  to  have  this  toe-nail  or  hoof  pared,  and 
protected  by  shoes. 

Where  the  horse  was  first  domesticated  is  a 
matter  of  dispute  upon  which  historians  are  not 


6  THE     HORSE     IN    AMERICA 

at  all  agreed.  Some  say  it  was  in  Egypt,  some  se- 
lect Armenia,  and  some  content  themselves  with 
the  general  statement  that  horses  were  indige- 
nous in  Western  and  Central  Asia.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  go  into  this  discussion  were  it  not 
that  it  would  delay  us  too  long  from  the  subject  in 
hand.  At  first  they  were  used  only  in  war  and  for 
sport,  the  camel  being  used  for  journeys  and 
transportation,  and  the  ox  for  agriculture.  In- 
deed, I  fancy  the  horse  was  never  used  to  the 
plough  until  in  the  tenth  century  in  Europe.  The 
sculptures  of  ancient  Greece  and  contemporane- 
ous civilizations  give  us  the  best  idea  obtainable 
of  what  manner  of  animal  the  horse  was  in 
the  periods  when  those  sculptures  were  made. 
Mr.  Edward  L.  Anderson,  one  of  the  most 
careful  students  of  the  horse  and  his  history, 
says:  "Whether  Western  Asia  is  or  is  not  the 
home  of  the  horse,  he  was  doubtless  domesti- 
cated there  in  very  early  times,  and  it  was 
from  Syria  that  the  Egyptians  received  their 
horses  through  their  Bedouin  conquerors. 
The  horses  of  the  Babylonians  probably  came 
from  Persia,  and  the  original  source  of  all 


PREHISTORIC     AND     EARLY     HORSES  7 

these  may  have  been  Central  Asia,  from  which 
last-named  region  the  animal  also  passed  into 
Europe,  if  the  horse  were  not  indigenous  to  some 
of  the  countries  in  which  history  finds  it.  We 
learn  that  Sargon  I.  (3800  B.C.)  rode  in  his  char- 
iot more  than  two  thousand  years  before  there  is 
an  exhibition  of  the  horse  in  the  Egyptian  sculp- 
tures or  proof  of  its  existence  in  Syria,  and  his 
kingdom  of  Akkad  bordered  upon  Persia,  giving 
a  strong  presumption  that  the  desert  horse  came 
from  the  last-named  region  through  Babylonian 
hands.  It  seems  after  an  examination  of  the  rep- 
resentations on  the  monuments,  that  the  Eastern 
horse  has  changed  but  little  during  thousands  of 
years.  Taking  a  copy  of  one  of  the  sculptures  of 
the  palace  of  Ashur-bani-pal,  supposed  to  have 
been  executed  about  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century  before  our  era,  and  assuming  that  the 
bareheaded  men  were  5  feet  8  inches  in  height,  I 
found  that  the  horses  would  stand  about  14  £ 
hands  —  very  near  the  normal  size  of  the  desert 
horse  of  our  day.  The  horses  of  ancient  Greece 
must  have  been  starvelings  from  some  Northern 
clime,  for  the  animals  on  the  Parthenon  frieze 


8  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

are  but  a  trifle  over  12  hands  in  height,  and  are 
the  prototypes  of  the  Norwegian  Fiord  pony  —  a 
fixed  type  of  a  very  valuable  small  horse." 

The  British  horse  is  as  old  as  history.  He  was 
short  in  stature  and  heavy  of  build.  New  blood 
was  infused  by  both  the  Romans  and  the  Nor- 
mans, and  when  larger  horses  were  needed  to 
carry  heavily- armored  knights,  Flemish  horses 
were  introduced  both  for  use  and  breeding,  so 
that  by  the  time  the  Oriental  blood  was  intro- 
duced they  had  in  England  many  pretty  large 
horses,  resembling  somewhat  the  Cleveland  Bay 
of  the  present  time,  though  not  so  tall  by  three  or 
four  inches,  and  not  so  well  finished.  The  horses 
that  were  first  brought  to  America  by  the  English 
were  such  as  I  have  suggested.  But  the  first 
horses  brought  hither  were  not  English,  but 
Spanish,  and  these  were  undoubtedly  of  Oriental 
blood  as  were  the  horses  generally  in  Spain  after 
the  Moslem  occupation.  But  when  the  Spanish 
first  came  there  were  no  horses,  as  has  been  said 
before,  in  either  North  or  South  America.  Colum- 
bus in  his  second  voyage  brought  horses  with  him 
to  Santo  Domingo.  But  Cortez,  when  he  landed 


PREHISTORIC     AND     EARLY    HORSES  9 

in  1519  in  what  is  now  Mexico,  was  the  first  to 
bring  horses  to  the  mainland.  They  were  the 
wonder  of  the  Indians  who  believed  that  they 
were  fabulous  creatures  from  the  sun.  The  wild 
horses  of  Mexico  and  Peru  were  no  doubt  de- 
scended from  the  escaped  war  horses  of  the  Span- 
ish soldiers  slain  in  battle.  These  escaped  horses 
reproduced  rapidly,  and  the  plains  became  popu- 
lous with  them.  So,  also,  with  the  horses  aban- 
doned by  De  Soto,  who  returned  from  his  Missis- 
sippi expedition  in  boats  leaving  his  horses  be- 
hind. Professor  Osborn  of  the  American  Museum 
of  Natural  History,  has  recently  been  conducting 
explorations  in  Mexico,  studying  the  wild  horses 
there,  and  his  conclusions  are  proof  of  the  accur- 
acy of  the  surmises  which  have  been  made  by  the 
historians  of  the  early  Spanish  adventurers. 

Flanders  horses  were  brought  to  New  York  in 
1625  and  English  horses  to  Massachusetts  in 
1629.  Previous  to  these  importations,  however, 
English  horses  had  been  landed  in  Virginia,  and 
in  1647  the  first  French  horses  reached  Canada, 
being  landed  at  the  still  very  quaint  village  of  Ta- 
dousac.  Indeed,  during  all  the  colonial  times 


10  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

there  were  many  importations  as  well  as  much 
breeding,  for  on  horseback  was  the  only  way  a 
journey  could  be  taken,  except  by  foot  or  in  a 
canoe.  They  needed  good  serviceable  horses,  and 
they  obtained  them  both  by  importation  and 
breeding.  I  suspect  that  the  general  run  of  horses 
in  the  Colonial  era  in  New  England  and  along 
the  Atlantic  seaboard  was  very  similar  to  the 
horse  that  is  now  to  be  found  in  the  province  of 
Quebec,  Canada.  Every  one  who  has  visited  this 
province  knows  that  these  habitant  horses  are 
very  serviceable  and  handy,  besides  being  quite 
fast  enough  for  a  country  where  the  roads  have 
not  been  made  first  class.  Harnessed  to  a  calash, 
an  ancient,  two-wheeled,  French  carriage,  they 
take  great  journeys  with  much  satisfaction  to 
their  drivers  and  small  discomfort  to  themselves. 
Then  the  Colonists  had  the  Narragansett  pacer,  a 
horse  highly  esteemed  not  only  for  speed  but  for 
the  amble  which  made  his  slow  gait  most  excel- 
lent for  long  journeys.  When  Silas  Deane  was  the 
colleague  of  Benjamin  Franklin  at  the  French 
Court  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  he  pro- 
posed getting  over  from  Rhode  Island  one  of 


PREHISTORIC     AND     EARLY     HORSES  11 

these  pacers  as  a  present  for  the  queen.  Indeed, 
there  are  those  who  maintain  stoutly  that  the  vir- 
tues of  the  American  trotter  as  well  as  the  Amer- 
ican saddle-horse  came  from  these  pacers.  That 
may  be  the  case  so  far  as  the  trotters  are  con- 
cerned, for  of  the  horses  bred  to  trot  fast,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  more  are  pacers  than  trotters. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  Barbs  are  apt  to 
pace,  and  these  Narragansetts  may  have  had 
such  an  origin.  In  the  blood  of  all  our  horse  types 
there  is  some  proportion  of  Barb  blood,  and  we 
find  pacers  among  all  except  Thoroughbreds.  I 
am  sure  I  never  saw  a  Thoroughbred  that  paced, 
or  heard  of  one. 

The  history  of  the  American  horses  with 
which  we  are  concerned  to-day  may  be  said  to 
have  begun  after  the  War  of  the  Revolution.  But 
the  basic  stock  upon  which  the  blood  of  the  post- 
revolutionary  importations  was  grafted  was  most 
important  and  also  interesting.  It  was  gathered 
from  every  country  having  colonies  in  North 
America  and  blended  after  its  arrival.  The  Span- 
ish and  French  blood  was  strongly  Oriental  and 
mixed  kindly  with  that  from  Holland  and  Eng- 


12  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

land.  At  any  rate,  when  Messenger  came  in  1788 
and  Diomed  in  1799  there  was  good  material  in 
the  way  of  horse-flesh  ready  and  waiting  to  be 
improved. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

ARAB    AND    BARB    HORSES 

THE  Arab  horse  from  Nejd  and  the  Berber  horse 
from  Barbary  are  the  most  interesting  and  most 
important  specimens  of  the  equine  race.  This  has 
been  the  case  as  far  back  as  the  history  of  the 
horse  runs  and  tradition  makes  it  to  have  been  so 
for  a  much  longer  period.  And,  moreover,  these 
horses  in  the  perpetuation  of  established  Euro- 
pean and  American  types  are  as  important  to- 
day as  ever.  From  this  Nejdee  Arabian  and  Ber- 
ber of  Barbary  have  sprung  by  a  mingling  of 
these  ancient  bloods  with  other  strains,  all  of  the 
reproducing  horse  types  of  signal  value  in  the 
civilized  world,  including  the  Percheron  of 
France,  the  Orlof  of  Russia,  the  charger  of  Aus- 
tria, the  Thoroughbred  of  England,  the  Morgan 
of  Vermont,  Mr.  Huntington's  rare  but  interest- 
ing Clay-Arabians  of  New  York  and  the  Den- 
is 


14  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

marks  of  Kentucky.  The  same  is  the  case  with 
other  types  or  semi-types,  but  I  only  particularize 
these  because  the  mere  mention  of  them  shows  to 
what  uses  this  singularly  prepotent  blood  can  be 
put  when  the  two  extremes  of  equine  types,  and 
those  between  the  extremes  as  well,  appear  to 
owe  their  reproducing  quality  to  the  blood  of 
these  handsome  little  animals  that  have  been 
bred,  preserved  and,  so  far  as  possible,  monopo- 
lized by  the  nomadic  tribes  of  Barbary  and  of 
Nejd.  Nejd  comprises  the  nine  provinces  of  Cen- 
tral Arabia,  while  the  Berbers  wander  all  through 
the  Barbary  states  which  consist  of  Morocco,  Al- 
geria, Tunis,  and  Tripoli,  but  keep  as  remote  as 
possible  from  what  European  influence  that  ex- 
ists in  that  section  of  the  world. 

To  most  horsemen  in  America  the  name  of 
Arab  is  anathema.  They  will  have  none  of  him. 
So  far  as  their  light  goes  they  are  quite  right  in 
their  prejudice.  But  prejudice  in  this  instance,  as 
in  most  others,  is  the  result  of  ignorance.  And  I 
trust  in  the  light  of  what  I  shall  say  about  the 
Nejdee  Arabian,  the  Berbers  of  Barbary  and  the 
influence  of  this  blood  on  the  equine  stock  of  the 


ARAB     AND     BARB     HORSES  15 

world,  I  may  say  this  without  any  offense.  If  I 
give  the  offense  then  I  preface  it  with  the  apology 
that  I  mean  none.  The  truth  is  that  seven  out  of 
ten  of  the  Arabian  horses  taken  into  Europe  or 
brought  to  America  have  been  inferior  specimens 
and  not  of  the  correct  breed ;  twenty  per  cent  at 
least  have  been  mongrels  and  impostures,  while 
of  the  remaining  ten  per  cent  not  more  than  one 
per  cent  have  been  correct  in  their  breeding,  con- 
formation and  capacity  to  do  what  was  expected 
of  them. 

Some  men  reading  the  history  of  this  type  and 
that  have  persuaded  themselves  that  a  few  Arabs 
selected  personally  in  Arabia  would  enable  them 
to  beat  their  competitors  as  breeders  and  even  to 
win  against  horses  that  traced  back  one  hundred 
or  two  hundred  years  ago  to  Arab  and  Barb  an- 
cestors. Such  folly  always  resulted  in  costly  disap- 
pointment. This  folly  and  consequent  disap- 
pointment will  become  manifest  as  my  narrative 
proceeds.  But  before  going  any  further  I  do  not 
wish  any  of  my  readers  to  harbor  the  notion  that 
I  think  an  Arab  would  stand  any  chance  on  an 
ordinary  race-course  to  outrun  an  English  Thor- 


16  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

oughbred,  or  to  out-trot  in  harness  or  under  sad- 
dle an  Orlof  or  an  American.  I  maintain  no  such 
absurdity.  But  I  do  maintain  that  all  these  types, 
so  that  they  may  preserve  their  reproductive  ca- 
pacities, must  get  from  time  to  time  fresh  infu- 
sions of  this  blood.  That  is  why  the  purely  bred 
Arabian  —  and  the  Nejdee  is  the  purest  of  all  — 
is  as  valuable  to-day  as  when  the  Godolphin 
Barb  and  the  Darley  Arabian  began  the  regener- 
ation of  the  English  horse  into  that  wonderful 
Thoroughbred,  which  is  one  of  England's  proud- 
est achievements  and  most  constant  sources  of 
wealth. 

Historical  records  dating  back  to  the  fifth  cen- 
tury show  that  the  best  quality  and  the  greatest 
number  of  Arabian  horses  were  to  be  found  in 
Nejd.  They  are  also  to  be  found  there  to-day, 
and  the  number  has  not,  so  far  as  the  records 
speak,  increased.  They  have  never  been  numer- 
ous, as  it  has  never  been  the  policy  of  the  chiefs  to 
breed  for  numbers,  but  for  quality.  It  is  not  true, 
however,  that  a  lack  of  forage  was  the  restraining 
cause  of  this  comparative  scarcity  of  horses  in  the 
very  section  where  they  have  been  kept  in  their 


ARAB    AND     BARB     HORSES  17 

greatest  perfection.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  pas- 
ture land  of  Arabia  is  singularly  good.  The  very 
desert,  during  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  supplies 
sufficient  browse  for  camels;  while  the  pasture 
grass  for  horses,  kine,  and  above  all  for  sheep  on 
the  upper  hill  slopes,  and  especially  inNejd,  is  first- 
rate.  To  be  sure  there  are  occasional  droughts, 
but  few  grazing  countries  in  the  world  are  free 
from  them.  No,  the  scarcity  in  horses  is  not  due 
to  a  lack  of  food,  but  to  two  other  reasons  entirely 
satisfactory  to  the  chiefs  of  Nejd.  Horses  there 
are  not  a  common  possession  and  used  by  all.  On 
the  contrary,  their  ownership  is  a  mark  of  dis- 
tinction and  an  indication  of  wealth,  as  they  are 
never  used  except  for  war  and  the  chase  and  rac- 
ing, the  camel  carrying  the  burdens  and  doing  the 
heavy  work  of  the  caravans.  The  second  reason 
for  the  scarcity  is  that  Nejdee  horses  are  very 
rarely  sold  to  be  taken  out  of  the  province.  This 
is  not  the  result  of  sentiment,  but  one  purely  of 
protection  and  the  desire  to  preserve  a  monopoly 
in  a  race  that  is  easily  the  very  purest  in  the 
world. 

The  traditions  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Arabian 


18  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

horse  are  numerous.  Some  hold  that  they  are  in- 
digenous. If  this  were  supported,  then  the  tradi- 
tions would  lose  interest.  But  the  traditions  are 
interesting  and  in  general  effect  were  thus  ex- 
pressed by  the  Emir  Abd-El-Kader  in  1854,  in  a 
letter  addressed  to  General  Daumas,  a  division 
commander  who  served  long  in  Arabia  and  who 
was  later  a  senator  of  France.  He  said  that  God 
created  the  horse  before  man,  and  then  this  do- 
mestic animal  was  handed  down:  "1st.  From 
Adam  to  Ishmael;  2d,  from  Ishmael  to  Solomon; 
3d,  from  Solomon  to  Mohammed ;  4th,  from  Mo- 
hammed to  our  own  times."  This  tradition,  it 
must  be  said,  is  very  general  and  comprehensive 
in  its  scope,  but  to  the  Arabs  it  has  a  significant 
meaning,  as  they  claim  that  Ishmael,  the  bastard 
son  of  Abraham,  was  not  only  one  of  themselves 
but  their  founder,  for  is  it  not  written  in  the  Bible 
that  when  Hagar,  the  concubine  of  Abraham, 
fled  into  the  wilderness,  an  angel  appeared  to  her 
and  said : 

"  I  will  multiply  thy  seed  exceedingly  that  it  shall  not  be 
numbered  for  multitude.  Behold,  thou  art  with  child,  and 
shalt  bear  a  son  and  shaJt  call  his  name  Ishmael;  and  he 


ARAB     AND     BARB     HORSES  19 

will  be  a  wild  man ;  his  hand  will  be  against  every  man,  and 
every  man's  hand  against  him;  and  he  shall  dwell  in  the 
presence  of  all  his  brethren." 

Indeed,  this  son  of  Abraham  was  the  very  per- 
sonification of  the  Arabian  people  throughout 
their  whole  history,  and  he  needed  horses  as  the 
Arabian  people  have  needed  them  ever  since  to 
assist  in  the  forays  and  expeditions  which  give  to 
life  its  spice  and  its  prize.  Then  again,  there  is  a 
tradition  that  Nejd  got  its  horses  from  Solomon; 
another  that  they  came  from  Yemen.  This  seems 
to  me  the  same  tradition,  for  Yemen's  ancient 
name  was  Sheba ;  and  what  more  natural  than  for 
Solomon  to  have  rewarded  with  gifts  of  horses  the 
Queen  of  Sheba's  people  for  giving  him  one  of  his 
most  satisfactory  wives.  Then  there  is  a  story  that 
has  been  builded  up  in  our  own  days  by  a  man 
who  was  a  Methodist  minister  before  he  became 
a  manufacturer  of  trotting-horse  pedigrees  in  this 
country.  This  interesting  man  in  his  old  age,  if  he 
did  not  resume  the  occupation  of  his  youth,  did 
study  the  Bible  in  the  endeavor  to  show  that  the 
Arabian  horses  never  had  been  much  in  quality 
and  many  in  numbers,  and  that  their  antiquity 


or  ~HE 
UNIVERSITY 

OF 


20  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

was  not  of  any  importance  for  they  had  not  been 
taken  into  Arabia  from  Armenia  until  the  third 
century.  A  century  or  so  made  little  difference  to  a 
man  like  Wallace,  who  unwittingly  gave  to  these 
horses  two  centuries  more  of  record  than  history 
really  accounts  for.  But  whether  the  Nejdee  Arabs 
were  indigenous  or  brought  into  the  land  by  Ish- 
mael,  or  sent  by  Solomon,  or  taken  there  by  the 
Armenians,  it  is  certain  that  they  were  there  a 
hundred  years  before  Mohammed  became  a 
prophet,  and  in  characteristics  of  size,  temper 
and  performance  they  were  the  same  that  we  find 
to-day.  So  that  gives  us  a  long  record  of  fifteen 
centuries  during  which  we  know  that  the  greatest 
care  has  been  taken  to  keep  them  pure  in  blood 
and  to  train  them  to  the  work  for  which  they  were 
required. 

The  tradition  as  to  the  Berber  horse  of  Bar- 
bary  is  much  simpler,  as  these  robber  tribes  have 
not  developed  poets  or  historians,  and  content 
themselves  with  saying  that  the  horses  have  al- 
ways been  there.  And  so  far  as  we  are  concerned 
that  statement  is  as  satisfactory  as  any  other.  But 
we  do  know  that  supplies  of  these  horses  were  ob- 


ARAB     AND     BARB     HORSES  21 

tained  by  Saladin  in  his  domestic  wars,  and  were 
used  also  in  his  contests  with  the  faith-breaking 
crusaders  who  vainly  tried  to  destroy  the  Moslem 
rule  and  obtain  perpetual  possession  of  Jerusa- 
lem. From  the  earliest  times  it  has  been  a  mooted 
point  as  to  which  was  the  superior,  the  Berber  or 
the  Nejdee.  Among  the  Europeans  who  have 
lived  much  in  Egypt  this  is  still  a  disputed  mat- 
ter, and  when  Count  de  Lesseps  was  a  young 
man  he  endeavored  to  decide  the  question  by  a 
series  of  races  at  4J  kilometers  (about  2t  miles). 
Other  horses,  however,  were  admitted.  In  the 
first  heat  there  were  three  Nejdee  horses  all  bred 
in  Cairo  — -the  purity  of  the  blood  being  open  to 
suspicion  —  and  one  Syrian  horse.  A  Cairo-bred 
Nejdee  was  the  winner.  In  the  second  heat  there 
were  three  Nejdee  horses,  one  bred  in  Cairo,  and 
one  Barbary  horse  from  Tunis  owned  and  ridden 
by  Count  de  Lesseps  himself.  The  Barb  won.  In 
the  third  heat  there  were  three  Nejdee  horses, 
one  of  them  ridden  by  de  Lesseps,  and  one  Sa- 
mean  horse.  A  Cairo-bred  Nejdee  horse  won.  In 
the  fourth  heat  there  were  three  Nejdee  horses 
and  one  Egyptian  horse  from  Abfeh.  A  Nejdee 


22  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

horse  was  the  winner.  Then  came  the  final  heat 
between  the  winners  of  the  trial  heats.  The  result 
was  that  the  de  Lesseps  Barbary  horse  was  first, 
a  Cairo-bred  Nejdee  horse  was  second,  and  Nej- 
dee  horses  third  and  fourth. 

This  trial  was  cited  by  General  Daumas  as  evi- 
dence that  at  least  the  Barb  was  not  inferior  to 
the  Nejdee  in  fleetness.  It  only  indicates  to  me 
that  Count  de  Lesseps  was  the  shrewder  of  the 
contestants  and  had  selected  the  best  individual 
animal  among  the  sixteen  competitors.  However, 
the  Emir  Abd-El-Kader  believed  in  the  superior- 
ity of  the  Barbs,  and  as  an  instance  of  this,  quot- 
ed the  practice  of  Aamrou-El-Kais,  an  ancient 
King  of  Arabia,  who  "  took  infinite  pains  to  secure 
Barbary  horses  wherewith  to  combat  his  enemies. 
He  was  doubtful  of  success  if  obliged  to  trust 
himself  to  Arab  horses.  It  is  not  possible,  in  my 
opinion,  to  give  a  more  invincible  proof  of  the  su- 
periority of  the  Barb."  This  illustration  may 
have  been  convincing  to  the  learned  Musselman, 
but  to-day  we  should  want,  I  think,  a  more  mod- 
ern instance  to  be  satisfied;  and  we  should  want 
to  know  more  of  the  individuals  in  the  de  Les- 


ARAB    AND     BARB     HORSES  23 

seps's  trials  than  has  been  recorded.  That  the 
Barbs  have  had  as  great  influence  in  the  creation 
of  other  types  as  the  Nejdees  is  undoubtedly  true, 
for  while  it  has  never  been  easy  to  get  the  best 
specimens  of  Barbary  horses  for  exportation,  it 
has  never  been  so  difficult  as  to  get  Nejdee  Ara- 
bians of  equivalent  excellence.  The  Berbers  were 
natives  of  Palestine  and  expelled  by  one  of  the 
Persian  kings.  They  emigrated  to  Egypt,  but 
were  refused  permission  to  settle,  so  they  crossed 
over  to  the  other  side  of  the  Nile.  They  were  ad- 
venturesome robbers,  as  they  are  to-day,  and  no 
doubt  have  taken  their  horses  with  them  from 
their  first  setting  out  from  Palestine.  So  I  quote 
Abd-El-Kader  again:  "As  for  the  Berbers  them- 
selves, everything  proves  that  they  have  been 
known  from  time  immemorial,  and  that  they 
came  from  the  East  to  settle  in  the  Maghreb, 
where  we  find  them  at  the  present  day." 

Europe  did  not  know  much  of  these  Arab  and 
Barb  horses  until  the  Arabs  and  Moors  invaded 
and  conquered  Spain.  The  invasion  of  Spain  be- 
gan in  the  eighth  century  and  the  rule  lasted  until 
into  the  thirteenth  century,  though  the  Moors 


24  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

held  Grenada  for  two  centuries  later.  What  be- 
came a  conquest  was  begun  merely  as  a  raid  for 
rich  booty,  and,  of  course,  the  Arabs,  of  whom  it 
has  been  said,  "their  kingdom  is  the  saddle," 
were  mounted.  The  Berbers,  of  course,  took  their 
horses,  and  it  is  likely  that  during  those  long  cen- 
turies, it  was  the  first  time  out  of  the  Sahara  that 
Arabian  and  Barb  horses  were  bred  extensively 
and  their  blood  united.  It  is  undoubtedly  a  fact 
that  after  the  expulsion  of  these  conquerors, 
Spain  was  well  supplied  with  excellent  horses, 
horses  which  assisted  the  armies  of  Spain  to  hold 
what  her  navigators  had  discovered.  The  pil- 
grims returning  from  Palestine,  also  told  of  the 
excellent  horses  in  the  East,  and  the  Crusaders, 
more  practical  men,  had  all  the  evidence  that 
they  needed  in  their  battles  with  the  Musselman 
to  enable  them  to  testify  to  the  hardiness  and  the 
fleetness  of  the  horses  of  the  desert.  And  so  when 
lighter  cavalry  was  needed  to  replace  the  heavily- 
armed  knights,  whose  armor  the  use  of  gunpow- 
der had  made  obsolete,  the  soldiers  and  statesmen 
of  the  seventeenth  century  knew  where  to  look 
for  the  blood  that  would  improve  the  home-bred 


ARAB    AND     BARB     HORSES  25 

horses.  It  was  as  difficult  then  as  now  to  get 
Arabs  and  Barbs  of  the  best  blood,  but  some  at 
least  were  obtained,  and  from  the  beginning  in 
England  in  the  earliest  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century  we  trace  back  to  Eastern  horses  to  find 
the  founders  of  the  wonderful  Thoroughbreds, 
which  in  their  way  are  the  best  horses  the  world 
has  seen.  In  France,  too,  there  were  many  im- 
portations for  the  upbuilding  of  the  native  stock, 
but  this  took  a  different  direction,  and  we  are  not 
so  much  concerned  with  it  as  with  the  English. 

The  English  stud  book  of  the  Messrs.  Weath- 
erby,  the  first  effort  to  keep  trustworthy  records 
of  the  breeding  of  horses,  begins  with  1700,  the 
only  Eastern  horse  mentioned  before  this  being 
the  Byerly  Turk,  a  charger  used  by  Captain  By- 
erly  in  Ireland  in  1689.  Then  they  had  the  Dar- 
ley  Arabian,  Markham's  Arabian,  the  Alasker 
Turk,  Leede's  Arabian  and  the  Godolphin  Barb. 
The  most  important  of  these  were  the  Godolphin 
Barb  and  the  Darley  Arabian.  We  do  not  know 
exactly  whence  any  of  these  came,  nor  do  we 
know  the  pedigree  of  any.  Indeed,  to  know,  or 
pretend  to  know  the  pedigree  of  a  Nejdee  or  Ber- 


26  THE     HORSE     IN     AMERICA 

her  horse  is  to  show  ignorance  or  to  confess  im- 
posture. The  breeders  do  not  keep  or  give  pedi- 
grees except  when  they  wish  to  bolster  up  the 
merits  of  an  inferior  animal.  And  then  they  do  it 
because  they  have  been  asked  to  do  so  by  Euro- 
pean or  American  purchasers  not  acquainted 
with  the  Arab  practices.  It  seems  as  sensible  to 
ask  an  Arab  for  the  pedigree  of  a  horse  as  to  ask  a 
diamond  merchant  for  the  pedigree  of  a  stone. 
The  Arabs  have  had  these  horses  time  out  of 
mind.  They  know  them  to  be  purely  bred.  What 
more  could  a  sensible  man  want  ?  But  if  the  pur- 
chaser insists,  then  he  may  have  any  kind  of  pedi- 
gree that  seems  to  please  him  most.  He  can  have 
pure  Nejdee,  pure  Barb,  a  cross  between  the  two, 
or  any  admixture  of  Egyptian,  Syrian,  or  Turkish 
blood  that  best  suits  his  taste.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  these  Eastern  pedigrees  are  pure  fakes, 
merely  made  up  things,  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
recorded  pedigree  of  the  famous  Hambletonian, 
the  founder  of  the  standard  bred  trotter  in  Amer- 
ica. To  the  Arabs  in  their  breeding,  pedigree 
makes  no  more  difference  in  mating  than  it  does 
to  the  birds  of  the  air  or  the  beasts  of  the  forest. 


ARAB     AND     BARB     HORSES  27 

They  know  that  they  have  animals  of  pure  blood 
and  that  the  progeny  of  them  will  still  be  pure  no 
matter  how  closely  the  parents  may  be  related. 
There  is  selection,  of  course,  as  inferior  males  are 
not  permitted  to  be  sires.  Instead  of  that  they  are 
sometimes  destroyed,  or  sent  to  Syria  and  even  to 
Mesopotamia  to  serve  the  mares  of  those  re- 
gions where  the  mares  are  Arabs  but  not  pure 
Nejdees.  Here  is  one  queer  fact  about  the  Arab 
and  Barb  blood,  and  proof  also  of  its  wonderful 
prepotency.  So  long  as  it  is  mingled  with  other 
blood  not  too  heterogeneous,  the  most  close  in- 
breeding appears  not  only  to  do  no  harm,  but  ac- 
tually to  do  good.  This  is  particularly  so  with  the 
English  Thoroughbred,  the  American  Morgan, 
and  the  Kentucky  Denmark. 

All  we  are  told  about  the  Darley  Arabian  is 
this.  Mr.  Darley  of  Yorkshire,  had  a  brother  who 
was  a  merchant  in  Aleppo.  This  brother  brought 
home  a  black  bay  *  stallion  some  14  hands  in 
stature,  about  1700.  He  became  in  1707  the  sire 
of  Flying  Childers,  the  greatest  race-horse  in 
England  and  the  progenitor  of  most  of  those  on 

*  A  very  unusual  color  for  a  Nejdee. 


28  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

the  running  turf  in  America  and  England  to-day. 
The  dam  of  Flying  Childers  was  also  rich  in  Ori- 
ental blood,  as  she  was  an  inbred  Spanker  and 
Spanker  was  by  D'Arcy's  Yellow  Turk  from 
the  daughter  of  Morocco  Barb  and  Old  Bald 
Peg,  the  latter  being  by  an  Arab  horse  from 
a  Barb  mare.  So  we  see  that  this  first  great 
English  race-horse  was  almost  of  pure  Eastern 
blood. 

Of  Markham's  Arabian  we  only  know  that  he 
met  with  the  disapproval  of  the  then  Master  of 
Horse,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  and  had  scant 
chance.  Of  the  Godolphin  Barb  we  know  very  lit- 
tle previous  to  his  coming  to  England,  where  he 
was  held  in  such  little  esteem  that  he  was  used  as 
a  teaser  for  Hobgoblin.  We  are  told,  however, 
that  he  was  first  taken  to  France  and  held  of 
such  little  account  that  he  was  used  as  a  cart  horse, 
in  Paris.  He  was  finally  brought  to  England  about 
1725,  and  became  the  property  of  Lord  Go- 
dolphin.  He  was  a  brown  bay,  15  hands  high,  and 
with  an  unnaturally  high  crest.  He  served  Rox- 
ana  in  1731,  the  produce  being  Lath,  next  to 
Flying  Childers  the  greatest  horse  in  England  in 


ARAB     AND     BARB     HORSES  29 

the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Roxana 
was  by  Bald  Galloway,  her  dam  sister  to  Chan- 
ter by  the  Alasker  Turk  from  a  daughter  by 
Leedes's  Arabian  and  a  mare  by  Spanker.  Here 
we  see  again  the  value  of  these  crosses  of  Oriental 
blood.  From  the  mating  of  the  Godolphin  Barb 
and  Roxana  also  came  Cade,  the  sire  of  Regulus, 
the  grandam  of  that  most  marvelous  horse, 
Eclipse.  When  all  this  had  happened  the  English 
were  sure  they  were  on  the  right  road.  And  they 
have  kept  on  that  road  with  great  persistency, 
not  going  back,  however,  in  my  opinion,  fre- 
quently enough  to  the  pure  Nejdee  and  Berber 
stock  for  fresh  infusions.  That  they  have  not 
done  this  is  natural  enough,  however.  A  breeder 
wants  results  quickly.  To  get  a  collateral  strain 
from  fresh  Arab  and  Barb  blood  equal  to  the  pres- 
ent thoroughbred  would  probably  take  fifty 
years.  No  private  breeder  cares  to  do  that.  And 
the  English  government  does  not  officially  breed 
horses.  The  French,  the  Austrians  and  the  Rus- 
sians all,  however,  have  agents  in  Arabia  trying 
to  buy  the  animals  that  are  best  suited  to  do  just 
what  I  have  suggested.  And  they  all  succeed.  It  is 


30  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

too  much,  however,  to  expect  this  from  a  private 
breeder.  * 

One,  however,  in  this  country  has  had  the 
courage  and  the  tenacity  of  purpose  to  do  this.  I 
allude  to  Mr.  Randolph  Huntington,  of  Oyster 
Bay  on  Long  Island.  Mr.  Huntington  has  min- 
gled Arab  and  Barb  blood  with  that  of  the  Henry 
Clay  family  to  which  he  is  very  partial.  His  suc- 
cess in  creating  a  reproducing  type  has  been  dem- 
onstrated in  the  face  of  handicaps  that  would 
have  worn  out  the  patience  of  a  less  tenacious  and 
determined  man.  This  experiment  of  Mr.  Hunt- 
ington makes  a  story  of  its  own  which  I  shall 
tell  in  a  later  chapter. 

From  the  time  that  superior  horses  began  to  be 
imported  into  this  country,  and  that  was  in  the 
Colonial  era,  there  have  always  been  a  few  Arabs 
and  Barbs  brought  over  of  various  degrees  of  ex- 

*  According  to  the  reckoning  of  Major  Roger  D.  Upton  of  the  9th 
Royal  Lancers,  there  were  used  in  the  formation  of  the  English  stud  from 
the  time  of  James  I,  to  the  beginning  of  the  19th  Century,  Eastern  horses 
to  this  extent:  101  Arab  stallions,  7  Arab  mares,  42  Barb  stallions,  24  Barb 
mares,  1  Egyptian  stallion,  5  Persian  stallions,  20  Turkish  stallions,  and 
2  "Foreign"  stallions,  or  210  in  all.  In  the  popular  mind  of  all  of  these 
were  classed  as  Arabs.  This  is  not  right,  as  the  real  Arab  is  much  purer  in 
blood  than  the  others,  though  the  Barbs  have  virtues  by  no  means  to  be 
despised. 


ARAB    AND     BARB     HORSES  31 

cellence.  Of  course,  all  of  the  English  Thorough- 
breds were  rich  in  the  blood,  Messenger  among 
them.  They  came  also  into  Canada  with  the 
French,  and  the  Spaniards  who  had  crossed  the 
Mississippi  and  gone  to  California  from  Mexico 
brought  many  horses  all  presumably  of  this 
breed.  The  hardy  Mustangs  of  the  West,  which 
were  a  very  distinct  type,  were  evidently  de- 
scended from  the  castaways  of  the  Spanish  ex- 
plorers. To  President  Jefferson  there  came  a  gift 
of  Arab  stallions  and  mares.  These  were  sold  and 
the  money  turned  into  the  treasury.  After  Ibra- 
heem  Pasha  overran  Arabia  in  1817,  and  took 
several  hundred  head  of  Nejdee  horses  to  Egypt 
it  was  easier  for  a  time  to  buy  them  for  exporta- 
tion. And  from  there  at  about  this  time  there  were 
several  importations  into  America.  This  supply, 
however,  was  soon  exhausted,  as  the  Egyptians 
are  no.t  skilled  horse  breeders.  Besides,  the 
French  got  the  pick  of  this  captured  lot. 

Then  again,  Teysul,  King  of  Nejd,  made  a 
present  of  forty  stallions  and  mares  to  Abdul- 
Azeez,  Sultan  of  Turkey.  From  this  source  came 
Zilcaadi,  the  grandsire  of  the  great  Morgan  horse 


32  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

Golddust,  and  also  the  Arab  stallion  Leopard, 
given  to  General  Grant  in  1879,  when  the  Barb, 
Linden  Tree,  was  also  presented  to  him  by  the 
Sultan.  It  was  with  these  two  Grant  stallions,  by 
the  way,  that  Mr.  Huntington  began  the  experi- 
ment I  just  alluded  to. 

What  gave  the  Arab  horse  a  kind  of  disrepute  in 
America  was  the  experiments  of  Mr.  A.  Keene 
Richards.  Mr.  Richards  was  a  man  of  wealth  and 
education  and  a  breeder  of  race-horses  in  the  Blue 
Grass  section  of  Kentucky.  In  studying  the  his- 
tory of  the  English  Thoroughbred  he  came  to  the 
conclusion  he  would  like  to  get  fresh  infusions  of 
the  original  blood.  He  went  to  Arabia,  and  per- 
sonally selected  several  stallions.  These  he  mated 
with  his  Thoroughbred  mares,  and  when  the  colts 
were  old  enough  he  entered  them  in  the  races. 
They  were  not  fast  enough  to  win  even  when  con- 
ceded weight.  He  went  again,  this  was  about 
1855,  taking  with  him  the  animal  painter,  Troye. 
They  took  their  time,  and  came  back  with  a  su- 
perior lot.  Mr.  Richards  tried  over  again  the 
same  experiment  with  the  same  result.  The  colts 
did  not  have  the  speed  to  beat  the  Thoroughbreds. 


AEAB    AND    BARB    HORSES  33 

It  seems  to  me  that  any  one  except  an  incurable 
enthusiast  would  have  anticipated  exactly  what 
happened.  If  Mr.  Richards  had  waited  several 
generations  and  then  injected  the  new  infusions 
of  the  Arab  blood,  the  result  probably  would  have 
been  quite  different.  The  Civil  War  came  along 
about  this  time,  however,  and  the  experiment 
ended  in  what  was  considered  a  failure.  But  that 
blood  taken  to  Kentucky  at  that  time  by  Mr. 
Richards  has  been  valuable  in  an  unexpected  way, 
for  it  has  been  preserved  in  the  half-bred  horses  in 
the  horse-breeding  section,  and  it  crops  out  all  the 
time  in  those  wonderful  saddle-horses  of  the  Den- 
mark strain,  which  are  sent  all  over  the  country 
to  delight  the  lovers  of  horseback  exercise  as  well 
as  to  monopolize  the  ribbons  in  the  horse  shows. 
Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt,  in  England,  has  had  experi- 
ences similar  to  Mr.  Richard's.  But  he  has  gone 
the  same  wrong  road,  and  has  been  in  too  much 
of  a  hurry.  Continuity  in  breeding  is  something 
beyond  the  capacity  of  an  individual;  his  life  is 
not  long  enough.  That  is  why  every  government 
should  have  a  stud  to  keep  up  the  standard  of  the 
horses.  In  the  United  States  the  interests  are  so 


34  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

diverse  that  it  is  not  likely  that  this  will  soon  be 
done  in  an  extensive  way,  though  already  begun 
on  a  small  scale,  but  each  State,  whose  people 
are  horse  breeders,  should  do  something  of  the 
sort,  so  that  the  success  of  an  undertaking  might 
not  depend  upon  the  uncertain  life  and  more 
uncertain  fortunes  of  any  one  man. 

In  Arabia  the  horses  are  trained  at  a  very  early 
age.  Indeed,  the  suckling  colt  is  handled  almost 
from  his  birth.  As  a  yearling  he  is  trained  to  obey, 
exercised  with  the  halter  and  the  bit.  At  two- 
years  old  he  is  ridden  gently  but  without  fear  of 
hurting  him.  At  three  there  is  a  let-up  in  his 
work,  so  that  he  may  acquire  his  full  growth ;  but 
he  is  used  enough  to  keep  him  from  forgetting 
what  he  has  been  taught.  At  four  he  is  consid- 
ered full-grown  and  is  put  to  as  hard  service  as 
the  Arab  usually  knows.  It  is  a  mistaken  idea 
that  the  Arab  horse  is  considered  a  member  of 
the  family  to  which  he  belongs,  and  that  he  is 
pampered,  petted  and  caressed  by  the  women  and 
children,  and  stabled  in  the  same  tents  as  his 
owners.  Those  are  all  fanciful  ideas  of  the  poets. 
On  the  contrary,  an  Arab  horse  is  early  immured 


ARAB     AND     BARB     HORSES  35 

to  hardships,  so  that  in  emergency  he  may  sub- 
sist on  scant  food  and  little  water.  Every  one  has 
heard  it  said  that  an  Arab  would  give  his  last 
crust  to  his  horse  rather  than  eat  it  himself.  I 
readily  grant  that  in  some  cases  he  would  do  so, 
and  so  would  any  other  man  of  sense  in  a  like  pre- 
dicament. The  Arabs  are  great  robbers  and  won- 
derful chaps  to  run  away.  In  the  desert  they  do 
not  have  telegraphs  and  telephones  to  intercept 
a  fleeing  thief.  There  it  is  a  question  of  the  fastest 
and  longest  enduring  horse.  So  of  course,  a  fleeing 
Arab,  with  his  pursuers  hot  on  his  track,  would 
give  his  last  crust  to  his  horse  rather  than  eat  it 
himself.  He  would  be  a  fool  if  he  did  not.  That 
last  crust  might  be  the  very  fuel  that  would  keep 
life  and  strength  in  his  engine  of  escape.  The 
Arab  is  not  a  sentimentalist  except  when  he  talks 
or  makes  poetry.  In  his  words  he  exhausts  his 
whole  supply.  Beneath  them  he  is  a  very  shrewd, 
cold  and  able  man  of  affairs. 

In  his  horses  the  Arab  has  immemorially  had 
the  means  to  gratify  his  vanity,  to  give  him  his 
best  beloved  sport,  to  enable  him  to  make  war, 
and,  above  all,  to  run  away.  The  distances  that 


36  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

these  horses  can  go  on  scant  rations  and  small 
quantities  of  water  seem  incredible,  while  that 
they  can  carry  heavy  weight  without  inconven- 
ience is  entirely  true,  for  I  have  tried  them.  But 
we  have  heard  wierd  stories  of  them  from  the  Ara- 
bic poets  themselves,  and  also  from  the  English 
who  have  used  what  they  could  get  for  their 
sports  in  India,  where  pony  racing  has  ever  been, 
since  the  English  occupation,  a  most  attractive 
diversion.  A  frequent  expression  that  one  comes 
across  in  old  books  of  life  in  India  is  that  some 
named  Arab  horse  had  a  head  so  small  that  it 
could  be  put  in  a  quart  cup.  That,  of  course,  was 
an  absurd  exaggeration,  but  they  undoubtedly 
have  very  small  and  handsome  heads.  Their 
heads,  I  am  sure,  were  never  so  small  nor  their 
necks  so  long  as  the  painters  have  represented 
the  heads  and  necks  of  the  Darley  Arabian  and 
the  Godolphin  Barb  to  have  been.  At  that  time  in 
England,  however,  the  painters  even  took  the  lib- 
erty of  exaggerating  the  length  of  neck  and  di- 
minutiveness  of  head  of  the  women  who  sat  to 
them.  It  was  the  fashion  of  the  time,  and  to  that 
fashion  we  owe  the  loss  of  correct  likenesses  of 


ARAB    AND     BARB    HORSES  37 

two  of  the  famous  horses  of  those  breeds  that  have 
left  their  impress  upon  the  fleetest  racers  in  the 
world,  besides  contributing  the  reproducing  ca- 
pacity to  all  the  horse  types  that  amount  to  any- 
thing in  the  civilized  world. 


CHAPTER  THREE 
THE    THOROUGHBRED    IN    AMERICA 

IN  the  previous  chapter  I  have  told,  as  well  as  I 
could/ how  the  English  race-horse  was  developed 
by  a  commingling  of  Oriental  blood  with  that  of 
horses  that  had  been  used  for  sporting  purposes 
in  our  mother  country.  I  confess  that  my  expla- 
nation must  seem  very  slipshod  to  any  who  are 
looking  for  a  mathematically  exact  exposition  of 
facts.  Nothing  would  have  pleased  me  better 
than  to  have  been  able  to  gratify  the  natural 
craving  that  people  have  for  exactness.  But  I 
cannot  be  less  general  than  I  have,  for  more 
specific  information  is  not  at  my  command.  It  was 
simply  demonstrated  by  practical  experiments 
that  the  mixture  of  the  bloods  mentioned  produced 
a  very  fast  and  sturdy  horse  that  was  superior  to 
what  had  previously  been  known  in  England,  to- 
gether with  the  more  important  fact  that  this 


THE    THOROUGHBRED     IN    AMERICA  39 

new  Anglo- Arab  was  a  type  that  was  reproducing 
and  kept  on  improving  in  speed  and  staying  qual- 
ities so  long  as  the  cardinal  principle  of  breeding : 
"like  produces  like"  was  adhered  to  with  the 
comprehensive  intelligence  which  made  the  rule 
embrace  performance,  conformation  and  blood. 
To  the  narrow-minded  the  law  "like  produces 
like,"  indicates  that  the  progeny  of  the  fastest 
stallion  and  the  fastest  mare,  when  breeding  for 
speed,  would  be  faster  than  either  parent.  It  is 
a  well-known  fact  that  mares  whose  fleetness  and 
gameness  has  been  demonstrated  by  long  careers 
on  the  turf  are  rarely  successful  as  dams.  Of 
course,  there  have  been  exceptions  to  this  general 
statement,  but  notwithstanding  these  exceptions, 
the  narrow-minded  application  of  the  rule  breaks 
down  just  at  this  point.  It  is  likeness  in  blood, 
conformation  and  general  characteristics  that  the 
rule  more  particularly  refers  to.  At  any  rate,  the 
English  had,  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  developed  a  distinctive  type  of  horse  of 
most  marvelous  fleetness  and  courage  and  with  a 
blood  prepotency  that  has  been  so  great,  that  after 
a  century  and  a  half  the  Thoroughbred  is  as  much 


40  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

improved  over  what  he  was  at  the  beginning  as 
the  beginners  were  better  than  the  common 
stock  of  England  a  century  earlier.  And  this  is 
the  type  that  we  call  to-day  in  America  the 
Thoroughbred. 

The  importation  of  the  Thoroughbred  into  this 
country  began  in  Colonial  Virginia,  where  there 
was  then  probably  more  sporting  blood  than 
there  is  now,  when  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  at  all 
pallid,  but  on  the  contrary  very  red.  The  first 
Thoroughbred  of  which  there  is  record,  and  the 
record  is  not  as  exact  as  we  should  like,  was 
brought  to  Virginia  in  1730,  by  Messrs.  Patton 
and  Gist,  and  was  called  Bulle  Rock.  He  was 
said  to  have  been  foaled  in  1718,  and  to  have  been 
sired  by  the  Darley  Arabian,  first  dam  by  the 
Byerly  Turk.  That  was  good  breeding,  and  the 
gentlemen  of  Virginia  accepted,  to  an  extent,  at 
least,  the  invitation  of  Bulle  Rock's  owners  to  use 
his  services  in  improving  the  general  stock  of  the 
Old  Dominion,  for  every  now  and  then  in  the  very 
oldest  records  he  appears  in  the  genealogy.  How 
good  the  horses  were  that  were  landed  in  Virginia 
previous  to  this  time,  we  can  not  say,  but  only 


THE  THOROUGHBRED  IN  AMERICA     41 

presume  that  they  were  as  good  as  the  importers 
could  find  and  afford  to  buy,  for  they  were  fox 
hunters  and  hard  riders  from  the  beginning  of 
their  coming.  After  Bulle  Rock's  coming  to  Vir- 
ginia, very  quickly  Dabster,  Jolly  Ranger,  Janus, 
and  Fearn aught  followed. 

The  South  Carolinians  were  not  long  behind 
the  Virginians  in  their  importations,  and  by  1760 
a  jockey  club  had  been  established  in  Charleston, 
and  regular  race  meetings  were  held.  Many  of 
the  wealthy  land  owners  imported  and  bred 
horses  for  these  contests.  In  the  same  year  that 
this  club  was  founded,  Colonel  De  Lancey,  of 
New  York,  brought  out  Lath  from  England,  and 
a  little  later  Wildair,  the  horse  supposed  by  some 
to  have  been  the  great  grandsire  of  the  dam  of 
Justin  Morgan,founderof  the  Morgan  type  of  Ver- 
mont. About  the  same  time  there  came  to  New 
York  the  Cub  Mare  and  Fair  Rachel,  both  still 
famous  in  the  pedigrees  in  the  "American  Stud 
Book."  These  matrons  found  homes  in  Virginia, 
and  assisted  in  the  making  of  those  old  time 
"four  mile  heat"  horses,  the  only  kind  which  our 
ancestors  deemed  really  first  rate.  Before  the 


42  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

Revolutionary  War  there  was  much  racing  in 
Long  Island  as  well  as  in  Virginia  and  the  Car- 
olinas,  but  the  great  contests  between  states  and 
sections  did  not  begin  till  a  later  date.  During  the 
Revolutionary  War  there  were  few  importations  of 
Thoroughbreds,  but  when  the  young  country  had 
a  little  recovered  in  her  industries  from  the  effects 
of  that  conflict,  the  importations  began  again  and 
in  1788  the  gray  stallion  Messenger,  the  founder  in 
some  measure  of  our  trotting  stock,  was  brought 
out,  and  in  1799  the  Derby  winner  Diomed  — 
the  most  important  of  all  horses,  so  far  as  race- 
horses in  America  are  concerned  —  came  out  to 
Virginia.  Of  Messenger,  much  will  be  said  in  the 
proper  place;  of  Diomed,  here  is  the  place  to 
speak  of  his  record  and  his  influence  on  the 
Thoroughbreds  born  to  America.  As  a  race-horse 
he  was  par  excellence  the  horse  of  his  day  in 
England,  carrying  practically  everything  before 
him  while  that  day  lasted.  But  he  was  kept  in 
training  too  long  —  for  what  may  be  called  two 
days  instead  of  one  —  and  rather  lost  his  fame 
before  he  was  retired  to  the  stud.  In  the  stud  he 
was  successful,  but  was  not  fashionable,  his 


THE    THOROUGHBRED     IN    AMERICA  43 

standing  fee  being  reduced  to  two  guineas  before 
he  was  sold  to  Colonel  Hoomes  to  be  taken  to 
Virginia.  In  Virginia  he  was  an  immense  success 
as  a  sire,  and  few  successful  horses  of  American 
stock  up  to  the  present  time  lack  a  strain  of  this 
blood.  Among  his  American  progeny  were  Sir 
Archie,  Florizel,  Potomac,  Peacemaker,  Top 
Gallant,  Hamiltonian,  Vingt-un,  Duroc,  Hamp- 
ton, Commodore  Trixton,  the  dam  of  Sir  Henry 
and  the  dam  of  Eliza  White.  He  was  in  the  stud 
only  eight  years  in  this  country,  but  left  an  im- 
perishable impression.  While  he  lived  he  domi- 
nated all  other  stallions  in  America,  and  after- 
wards his  sons  worthily  took  his  place.  He  was  a 
chestnut,  15.3  in  stature,  and  was  got  by  Florizel 
out  of  a  Spectator  mare,  her  dam  by  Blank,  gran- 
dam  by  Childers  out  of  Miss  Belvoir  by  Gray 
Grantham,  and  so  forth.  The  greatest  race- 
horse of  Diomed's  get  in  America  was  Sir 
Archy;  and  Sir  Archy  rivaled  his  sire's  per- 
formances in  the  stud.  He  was  retired  early  and, 
living  to  a  great  age,  had  opportunities  denied  to 
Diomed. 

Before  the  death  of  Sir  Archy,  racing  was  well 


44  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

established  in  America  in  several  sections  and  was 
pre-eminently  the  sport  of  gentlemen.  The 
wagers  made  were  heavy  —  would  be  considered 
heavy  to-day  when  the  sport  has  become  defiled 
by  being  very  much  of  a  gambler's  game  —  but 
the  races  run  were  comparatively  few.  Section 
against  section  soon  became  popular  —  the  North 
against  the  South,  Virginia  against  South  Caro- 
lina, Kentucky  against  Tennessee,  and  so  on. 
The  first,  and  in  many  regards  the  most  import- 
ant of  these  contests,  was  a  race  at  four  mile 
heats  over  the  Union  Course  on  Long  Island  in 
1823,  for  a  wager  of  $20,000  a  side.  Sir  Henry, 
the  representative  of  the  South,  was  by  Sir 
Archy,  dam  by  Diomed  and  grandam  by  Bel 
Air.  He  was  four  years  old,  and  carried  108 
pounds.  Eclipse  (or  American  Eclipse)  was  by 
Duroc,  his  dam  being  Miller's  Damsel  by 
Messenger.  He  was  nine  years  old  and  carried 
126  pounds.  So  it  will  be  seen  that  the  contestants 
were  both  grandsons  of  Diomed;  indeed,  Sir 
Henry  was  a  grandson  through  both  sire  and  dam. 
The  description  of  the  race  I  take  from  that  en- 
tertaining book,  "Figures  of  the  Past,"  by  the 


THE    THOROUGHBRED     IN    AMERICA  45 

late  Josiah  Quincy,  with  the  consent  of  the  pub- 
lishers, Messrs.  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  of  Boston. 
Here  is  what  Mr.  Quincy  wrote  from  his  diary. 

'*  ECLIPSE "    AGAINST    THE    WORLD 

"On  the  27th  of  May,  1823,  nearly  fifty-seven 
years  ago,  there  was  great  excitement  in  the  city 
of  New  York,  for  on  that  day  the  long-expected 
race  of  '  Eclipse  against  the  world '  was  to  be  de- 
cided on  the  race-course  on  Long  Island.  It  was 
an  amicable  contest  between  the  North  and  the 
South.  The  New  York  votaries  of  the  turf  —  a 
much  more  prominent  interest  than  at  present  — 
had  offered  to  run  Eclipse  against  any  horse  that 
could  be  produced,  for  a  purse  of  $10,000;  and 
the  Southern  gentlemen  had  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge. I  could  obtain  no  carriage  to  take  me  to  the 
course,  as  every  conveyance  in  the  city  was  en- 
gaged* Carriages  of  every  description  formed  an 
unbroken  line  from  the  ferry  to  the  ground.  They 
were  driven  rapidly,  and  were  in  very  close  con- 
nection; so  much  so  that  when  one  of  them  sud- 
denly stopped,  the  poles  of  at  least  a  dozen  car- 
riages broke  through  the  panels  of  those  pre- 


46  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

ceding  them.  The  drivers  were,  naturally,  much 
enraged  at  this  accident;  but  it  seemed  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  crush  and  hurry  of  the 
day,  and  nobody  could  be  blamed  for  it.  The 
party  that  I  was  with,  seeing  there  was  no  chance 
of  riding,  was  compelled  to  foot  it.  But  after  plod- 
ding some  way,  we  had  the  luck  to  fall  in  with  a 
returning  carriage,  which  we  chartered  to  take 
us  to  the  course.  On  arriving,  we  found  an  as- 
sembly which  was  simply  overpowering;  it  was 
estimated  that  there  were  over  one  hundred 
thousand  persons  upon  the  ground.  The  con- 
dition of  the  race  were  four-mile  heats,  the  best 
two  in  three;  the  course  was  a  mile  in  length.  A 
college  friend,  the  late  David  P.  Hall,  had  pro- 
cured for  me  a  ticket  for  the  jockey-box,  which 
commanded  a  view  of  the  whole  field.  There  was 
great  difficulty  in  clearing  the  track,  until  Eclipse 
and  Sir  Henry  (the  Southern  horse),  were 
brought  to  the  stand.  They  were  both  in  brave 
spirits,  throwing  their  heels  high  into  the  air; 
they  soon  effected  that  scattering  of  the  multi- 
tude which  all  other  methods  had  failed  to  ac- 
complish. And  now  a  great  disappointment  fell, 


THE  THOROUGHBRED  IN  AMERICA     47 

like  a  wet  blanket,  on  more  than  half  the  spec- 
tators. It  was  suddenly  announced  that  Purdy, 
the  jockey  of  Eclipse,  had  had  a  difficulty  with  his 
owner  and  refused  to  ride.  To  substitute  an- 
other in  his  place  seemed  almost  like  giving  up 
the  contest;  but  the  man  was  absolutely  stubborn, 
and  the  time  had  come.  Another  rider  was  pro- 
vided, and  the  signal  for  the  start  was  given.  I 
stood  exactly  opposite  the  judges'  seat,  where  the 
mastering  excitement  found  its  climax.  Off  went 
the  horses,  every  eye  straining  to  follow  them. 
Four  times  they  dashed  by  the  judges'  stand,  and 
every  time  Sir  Henry  was  in  the  lead.  The  spirits 
of  the  Southerners  seemed  to  leap  up  beyond  con- 
trol, while  the  depression  of  the  more  phlegmatic 
North  set  in  like  a  physical  chill.  Directly  be- 
fore me  sat  John  Randolph,  the  great  orator  of 
Virginia.  Apart  from  his  intense  sectional  pride, 
he  had  personal  reasons  to  rejoice  at  the  turn 
things  were  taking;  for  he  had  bet  heavily  on  the 
contest,  and,  it  was  said,  proposed  to  sail  for  Eu- 
rope upon  clearing  enough  to  pay  his  expenses. 
Half  an  hour  elapsed  for  the  horses  to  get  their 
wind,  and  again  they  were  brought  to  the  stand. 


48  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

But  now  a  circumstance  occurred  which  raised 
a  deafening  shout  from  the  partizans  of  the  North. 
Purdy  was  to  ride.  How  his  scruples  had  been 
overcome  did  not  appear,  but  there  he  stood  be- 
fore us,  and  was  mounting  Eclipse.  Again,  amidst 
breathless  suspense,  the  word  "Go!"  was  heard, 
and  again  Sir  Henry  took  the  inside  track,  and 
kept  the  lead  for  more  than  two  miles  and  a  half. 
Eclipse  followed  close  on  his  heels  and,  at  short 
intervals,  attempted  to  pass.  At  every  spurt  he 
made  to  get  ahead,  Randolph's  high-pitched  and 
penetrating  voice  was  heard  each  time  shriller 
than  before:  'You  can't  do  it,  Mr.  Purdy!  You 
can't  do  it,  Mr.  Purdy!  You  can't  do  it,  Mr. 
Purdy ! '  But  Mr.  Purdy  did  do  it.  And  as  he  took 
the  lead  what  a  roar  of  excitement  went  up !  Tens 
of  thousands  of  dollars  were  in  suspense,  and, 
although  I  had  not  a  cent  depending,  I  lost  my 
breath,  and  felt  as  if  a  sword  had  passed  through 
me.  Purdy  kept  the  lead  and  came  in  a  length  or 
so  ahead.  The  horses  had  run  eight  miles,  and 
the  third  heat  was  to  decide  the  day.  The  con- 
fidence on  the  part  of  the  Southern  gentlemen 
was  abated.  The  manager  of  Sir  Henry  rode  up 


THE  THOROUGHBRED  IN  AMERICA     49 

to  the  front  of  our  box  and,  calling  to  a  gentle- 
man, said:  'You  must  ride  the  next  heat;  there 
are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Southern  money 
depending  on  it.  That  boy  don't  know  how  to 
ride;  he  don't  keep  his  horse's  mouth  open!'  The 
gentleman  positively  refused,  saying  that  he  had 
not  been  in  the  saddle  for  months.  The  manager 
begged  him  to  come  down,  and  John  Randolph 
was  summoned  to  use  his  eloquent  persuasions. 
When  the  horses  were  next  brought  to  the  stand, 
behold  the  gentleman*  appeared,  booted  and 
spurred,  with  a  red  jacket  on  his  back,  and  a 
jockey  cap  on  his  head.  On  the  third  heat  Eclipse 
took  the  lead,  and,  by  dint  of  constant  whipping 
and  spurring,  won  by  a  length  this  closely  con- 
tested race. 

"There  was  never  contest  more  exciting.  Sec- 
tional feeling  and  heavy  pecuniary  stakes  were 
both  involved.  The  length  of  time  before  it  was 
decided,  the  change  of  riders,  the  varying  for- 
tunes, all  intensified  the  interest.  I  have  seen  the 
great  Derby  races ;  but  they  finish  almost  as  soon 
as  they  begin,  and  were  tame  enough  in  com- 

*  Arthur  Taylor,  a  Virginian, 


50  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

parison  to  this.  Here  for  nearly  two  hours  there 
was  no  abatement  in  the  strain.  I  was  uncon- 
scious of  everything  else,  and  found,  when  the 
race  was  concluded,  that  the  sun  had  actually 
blistered  my  cheek  without  my  perceiving  it. 
The  victors  were,  of  course,  exultant,  and  Purdy 
mounted  on  Eclipse,  was  led  up  to  the  judges' 
stand,  the  band  playing,  'See  the  Conquering 
Hero  Comes. '  The  Southerners  bore  their  losses 
like  gentlemen,  and  with  a  good  grace.  It  was 
suggested  that  the  comparative  chances  of  Adams 
and  Jackson  at  the  approaching  presidential  elec- 
tion should  be  tested  by  a  vote  of  that  gathering. 
'Ah,'  said  Mr.  Randolph,  4if  the  question  of  the 
Presidency  could  be  settled  by  this  assembly, 
there  would  be  no  opposition :  Mr.  Purdy  would 
go  to  the  White  House  by  acclamation. 

The  first  heat  was  run  in  7.37J,  the  second  in 
7.49,  and  the  third  in  8.24.  Not  very  fast  time 
considering  what  has  been  done  since;  and  con- 
temptible according  to  the  pretensions  made  by 
race-horse  owners  of  the  present  day,  when  "  four- 
mile  heats"  are  obsolete  because  they  interfere 
with  the  business  of  the  sport,  and  do  not  give  the 


p   * 

I  £ 


8  I 


THE  THOROUGHBRED  IN  AMERICA     51 

bookmakers  frequent  enough  chance  to  turn  over 
the  money  of  the  public.  They  base  these  pre- 
tensions on  the  performance  of  Lucretia  Borgia, 
a  four-year-old,  that  ran  a  four-mile  dash  in  1897, 
in  California,  in  7. 1 1 ,  carrying  eighty- five  pounds. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Thoroughbreds  of  the 
present  are  much  faster  than  those  of  1823,  but 
the  only  way  to  compare  them  as  to  gameness 
and  bottom  is  to  have  them  repeat  and  repeat 
again,  and  see  whether  or  not  this  increased  fleet- 
ness  is  maintained.  Probably  it  will  not  be  done, 
for  the  one-time  sport  of  gentlemen  is  nowadays 
very  much  a  mere  gambler's  game. 

The  next  great  contest  that  old-time  racing 
men  spoke  of  with  a  respect  that  was  akin  to  awe 
was  that  between  Gray  Eagle,  a  Kentucky  horse, 
by  Woodpecker  out  of  Ophelia  by  Medley,  and  a 
Louisiana  horse,  Wagner,  by  Sir  Charles  out  of 
Maria  West  by  Marion,  at  four-mile  heats.  This 
was  at  Louisville  in  1839.  Wagner  won  the  first 
two  heats,  Gray  Eagle  being  badly  ridden,  in 
7.48  and  7.44.  This  race  was  run  on  a  Monday. 
The  following  Saturday  the  race  was  repeated. 
Gray  Eagle  won  the  first  heat  in  7.51;  Wagner 


UNIVERSITY 


52  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

took  the  second  heat  in  7.43.  Gray  Eagle  broke 
down  on  the  second  mile  of  the  third  race,  and  no 
time  was  kept.  Though  I  was  not  born  for  many 
years  after  these  races  were  run,  they  were  so  im- 
portant in  the  history  of  the  neighborhood  where 
I  lived  and  such  frequent  topics  of  conversation 
that  I  sometimes  have  difficulty  in  persuading 
myself  that  I  was  not  present.  In  this  I  some- 
what resemble  the  gallant  King  of  England,  who 
believed  that  he  was  at  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 

Kentucky  had  become  prominent  before  this 
time  as  a  breeding  place  for  Thoroughbreds.  The 
Kentuckians,  mainly  from  Virginia  in  the  early 
days,  were  horse  lovers  by  inheritance  and  habit, 
so  they  took  with  them  to  their  new  homes  very 
little  but  good  stock.  They  were  not  impoverished 
adventurers  seeking  new  pioneer  homes  because 
they  had  failed  in  the  places  of  their  birth.  Not  a 
bit  of  it.  They  were  well  born  and  of  good  sub- 
stance, and  they  went  to  this  new  country  to 
found  estates,  for  the  gentlemen  of  that  period 
had  not  outgrown  the  Elizabethan  land  hunger 
which  took  so  many  of  the  cavaliers  to  Virginia 
in  an  earlier  century.  That  they  took  good  horses 


THE    THOROUGHBRED    IN    AMERICA          53 

with  them  was  a  matter  of  course.  And  arriving 
there  they  found  that  the  native  blue  grass,  which 
grew  plentifully  even  in  the  woods,  was  past- 
urage upon  which  horses  flourished  mightily. 
The  advertisements  in  the  Kentucky  Gazette  from 
1787  to  1805  show  that  there  were  many  Thor- 
oughbred stallions  standing  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Lexington  during  those  years,  and  not  a  few 
of  them  were  imported  from  England,  the  others 
coming  from  Virginia,  the  noble  pedigrees  being 
printed  at  full  length,  with  references  nearly  al- 
ways to  the  Newmarket  Racing  Calendar  to  sub- 
stantiate the  turf  performances  of  the  sires  adver- 
tised. So  Kentucky  was  prepared  with  stock  of  her 
own  to  take  the  place  of  the  Virginia  horse  breed- 
ers when  the  wasteful  methods  of  agriculture,  and 
the  costly  habits  of  hospitality,  had  impoverished 
the  mother  State  and  made  racing  a  sport  too  ex- 
pensive for  the  depleted  purses  of  the  gentlemen 
who  stayed  at  home.  The  Sir  Archy  blood  was 
what  the  Kentuckians  seem  to  have  been  after, 
and  soon  there  was  more  of  it  in  Kentucky  than  in 
Virginia.  Some  six  of  Sir  Archy's  sons  stood  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Lexington  at  one  time,  and 


54  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

there  were  mares  there  fit  to  mate  with  Diomed's 
grandsons. 

The  Whip  family  were  also  well  represented, 
and  among  the  other  English  stallions  taken 
thither  may  be  mentioned  Buzzard,  Royalist, 
Dragon,  Speculator,  Spread  Eagle,  Forrester, 
Alderman,  Eagle,  Pretender,  Touchstone  and 
Archer.  All  a  reader,  who  wishes  to  go  deeper, 
needs  to  do  is  to  look  at  the  stud  book  and  see 
what  pure  and  royal  blood  the  Kentuckians  were 
working  with  to  make  that  foundation  stock 
which  made  the  State  so  famous,  that  at  this  time 
there  are  more  Thoroughbreds  foaled  there  than 
in  all  the  other  States  of  the  Union  combined. 

The  breeders  there  were  amateurs,  however  — 
men  who  bred  for  the  love  of  the  horse  and 
the  love  of  sport  —  until  Mr.  Robert  A.  Alex- 
ander began  his  operations  at  the  famous  Wood- 
burn  farm,  where  the  breeding  of  Thoroughbreds 
was  more  extensively  carried  on  than  in  any 
other  place  in  the  world.  Mr.  Alexander  was  a 
native  Kentuckian,  but  educated  at  Cambridge 
in  England.  He  died  at  forty-eight,  but  he  gave  a 
great  impetus  to  stock  breeding  in  Kentucky. 


THE  THOROUGHBRED  IN  AMERICA    55 

When  I  first  visited  Woodburn,  the  great  Lex- 
ington was  at  the  head  of  the  stud.  Later  Mr. 
Alexander,  as  well  as  his  brother  and  successor, 
had  many  other  great  stallions  and  brood  mares, 
and  colts  and  fillies  from  this  farm  for  a  score  of 
years  captured  the  richest  prizes  of  the  American 
turf.  The  history  of  Woodburn  from  1850  to 
1880  would  almost  amount  to  the  same  thing  as  a 
history  of  Thoroughbred  breeding  in  Kentucky 
for  that  period,  though  there  were  many  other 
smaller  breeders,  as  there  are  now,  when  the 
James  B.  Haggin  Elmendorf  farm  has  taken 
the  premier  place,  and  that,  too,  on  a  very 
much  larger  scale  even  than  Alexander's  Wood- 
burn.  As  it  was  in  Alexander's  time,  however, 
the  smaller  breeders,  particularly  Mr.  Keene  and 
Mr.  Belmont,  are  still  fortunate  in  producing 
most  admirable  horses ;  and  it  will  be  a  bad  thing 
for  the  Thoroughbred  industry  in  Kentucky  when 
this  is  no  longer  so.  The  result  of  a  monopoly  of 
breeding  horses  would  be  the  same  as  the  result 
produced  by  the  trusts  in  oil,  in  steel  and  in  beef; 
the  industry  would  be  controlled  by  one  man,  or 
several  in  combination,  and  the  only  competition 


56  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

that  would  remain  would  be  between  the  men  who 
attend  to  the  gambling  end  of  the  game.  This  is 
not  likely  to  happen,  unless  a  corporation  be 
formed  to  take  over  the  chief  breeding  farms,  for 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  when  an  owner  dies,  his 
horses  are  sold  and  his  collection  dispersed  so  as 
to  settle  his  estate. 

After  the  Gray  Eagle- Wagner  race,  the  next 
one  that  was  watched  with  breathless  interest  by 
the  whole  country  was  the  match  at  four-mile 
heats  between  Fashion  and  Boston  for  $20,000  a 
side.  This  was  run  on  Long  Island  in  1842,  and 
both  heats  were  won  by  Fashion,  the  time  being 
7.32J  and  7.45.  The  time  of  this  race,  it  will  be 
seen,  was  an  improvement  on  that  of  the  Eclipse- 
Sir  Henry  race,  and  also  on  the  time  in  the  race 
between  Gray  Eagle  and  Wagner.  It  was  called 
a  match  between  North  and  South,  and  the  North 
was  again  the  winner.  Fashion  was  bred  in  New 
Jersey,  and  was  by  Commodore  Stockton's  im- 
ported stallion  Trustee  out  of  the  Virginia  bred 
mare,  Bonnets  o'  Blue.  Boston  came  from  Vir- 
ginia, and  was  by  Timoleon  out  of  Robin 
Brown's  dam  by  Florizel.  Boston  was  a  grand- 


THE    THOROUGHBRED    IN    AMERICA  57 

son  of  Sir  Archy,  and  foaled  in  1833.  From  the 
time  of  his  training  as  a  three-year-old  until  he 
met  Fashion,  six  years  later,  he  had  campaigned 
all  over  the  country  and  had  meet  with  almost 
universal  success.  He  was  considered  the  greatest 
horse  of  his  day,  and  there  are  many  students  of 
Thoroughbreds  who  to-day  consider  that  he  was 
the  greatest  influence  for  good  of  any  horse  ever 
bred  in  this  country,  greater  even  than  his  very 
wonderful  son,  Lexington. 

The  last  great  race  —  classic  races,  the  turf 
writers  call  them  —  prior  to  the  Civil  War,  was 
at  New  Orleans,  between  two  sons  of  Boston  — 
Lexington  and  Lecompte.  The  former  was  out  of 
Alice  Carneal  by  imported  Sarpedon,  the  latter 
out  of  Reel  by  imported  Glencoe.  This  race  was 
in  1854  and,  of  course,  at  four-mile-heats,  for  the 
Great  State  Post  Stakes.  The  city  of  New  Orleans, 
the  place  of  the  race,  was  packed  with  visitors 
from  all  over  the  country.  Lecompte  won  the  two 
first  heats,  the  time  being  7.26  and  7.38|.  Mr. 
Richard  Ten  Broeck,  the  owner  of  Lexington, 
was  so  dissatisfied  that  he  tried  to  arrange  a 
match  with  Lecompte.  This  came  to  nothing,  so 


58  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

he  issued  a  challenge  to  run  Lexington  against 
Lecompte's  time,  7.26,  which  was  the  record. 
This  challenge  was  accepted  and  the  trial  was 
made  over  the  Metarie  Course  in  New  Orleans  in 
April,  1855.  The  most  famous  jockey  of  the  time, 
Gil  Patrick,  was  taken  from  Kentucky  to  ride 
Mr.  Ten  Broeck's  horse,  and  again  the  sporting 
world  of  the  country  crowded  to  New  Orleans. 
Lexington  beat  the  record,  doing  the  four  miles 
in  7.19f,  and  Mr.  Ten  Broeck  was  $20,000  richer 
for  his  belief  in  his  horse.  There  was  at  that  time, 
and  is  now  for  that  matter,  a  feeling  that  a  record 
made  against  time  is  not  so  satisfactory  as  one 
made  in  an  actual  race,  so  the  friends  of  Lecompte 
were  not  cast  down  by  Lexington's  performance. 
This  trial  against  time  took  place  on  the  2d  of 
April.  On  the  24th  of  April  was  to  be  run  the 
Jockey  Club  Purse  of  $1000,  and  both  Lecompte 
and  Lexington  were  entered.  Mr.  Ten  Broeck 
and  General  Wells,  the  owner  of  Lecompte,  bet 
$2500  against  each  other,  though  in  the  general 
betting  Lexington  was  the  favorite  at  $100 
to  $80.  A  writer  of  the  day  thus  describes 
the  race: 


THE  THOROUGHBRED  IN  AMERICA     59 

"  Both  animals  were  in  the  finest  possible  con- 
dition, and  the  weather  and  the  track,  had  they 
been  manufactured  to  a  sportsman's  order,  could 
not  have  been  improved.  At  last  the  final  signal 
of  'Bring  up  your  horses'  sounded  from  the 
bugle;  and  prompt  to  call  Gil  Patrick,  the  well- 
known  rider  of  Boston,  put  his  foot  in  Lexing- 
ton's stirrup,  and  the  negro  boy  of  General  Wells 
sprang  into  the  saddle  of  Lecompte.  They  ad- 
vanced slowly  and  daintily  forward  to  the  stand, 
and  when  they  halted  at  the  score,  the  immense 
concourse  that  had,  up  to  this  moment,  been 
swaying  to  and  fro,  were  fixed  as  stone.  It  was  a 
beautiful  sight  to  see  these  superb  animals  stand- 
ing at  the  score,  filled  with  unknown  qualities  of 
flight,  and  quietly  awaiting  the  conclusion  of  the 
directions  to  the  riders  for  the  tap  of  the  drum. 

"At  length  the  tap  of  the  drum  came,  and  in- 
stantly it  struck  the  stationary  steeds  leaped  for- 
ward with  a  start  that  sent  everybody's  heart  into 
his  mouth.  With  bound  on  bound,  as  if  life  were 
staked  on  every  spring,  they  flew  up  the  quarter 
stretch,  Lexington  at  the  turn  drawing  his  nose  a 
shadow  in  advance,  but  when  they  reached  the 


60  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

half-mile  post  —  53  seconds  —  both  were  exactly 
side  by  side.  On  they  went  at  the  same  flying 
pace,  Lexington  again  drawing  gradually  for- 
ward, first  his  neck,  then  his  shoulder,  and  in- 
creasing up  the  straight  side  amid  a  wild  roar  of 
cheers,  flew  by  the  standard  at  the  end  of  the  first 
mile  three-quarters  of  a  length  in  the  lead.  One 
hundred  to  seventy-five  on  Lexington!  Time, 
1.49J. 

"Onward  they  plunge;  onward  without  pause! 
What  makes  this  throbbing  at  my  heart?  What 
are  these  brilliant  brutes  to  me  ?  Why  do  I  lean 
forward  and  insensibly  unite  my  voice  with  the 
roar  of  this  mad  multitude  ?  Alas,  I  but  share  the 
infatuation  of  the  horses,  and  the  leveling  spirit 
common  to  all  strife  has  seized  on  all  alike. 
Where  are  they  now  ?  Ah,  here  they  fly  around 
the  first  turn!  By  Heaven!  Lecompte  is  over- 
hauling him! 

"And  so  he  was,  for  on  entering  the  back 
stretch  of  the  second  mile  the  hero  of  7.26  made 
his  most  desperate  effort,  reaching  first  the  girth, 
then  the  shoulder,  then  the  neck  of  Lexington, 
and  finally,  when  he  reached  the  half-mile  post, 


THE    THOROUGHBRED     IN    AMERICA  61 

laid  himself  alongside  him,  nose  by  nose.  Then 
the  mass,  which  during  the  few  seconds  of  this 
special  struggle  had  been  breathless  with  hope 
and  fear,  burst  into  a  shout  that  rang  for 
miles,  and  amid  the  din  of  which  might  be 
heard  here  and  there,  'One  hundred  even  on 
Lecompte ! ' 

"But  this  equality  was  only  for  a  moment's 
term.  Lexington  threw  his  eye  jealously  askant; 
Gil  Patrick  relaxed  a  little  of  his  rein,  which  up  to 
this  time  he  had  held  close  in  hand,  and  without 
violence  or  startling  effort,  the  racer  of  racers 
stole  ahead,  gently,  but  steadily  and  surely,  as 
before,  until  he  drew  himself  a  clear  length  in  the 
lead,  in  which  position  they  closed  the  second 
mile.  Time,  1.51. 

"Again  the  hurrah  rises  as  they  pass  the 
stand  -  '  One  hundred  to  seventy-five  on  Lex- 
ington ! '  —  and  swells  in  wider  volume  when 
Lexington  increases  his  one  length  to  three  from 
the  stand  to  the  turn  of  the  back  stretch.  In  vain 
Lecompte  struggled;  in  vain  he  called  to  mind 
his  former  laurels;  in  vain  his  rider  struck 
him  with  the  steel;  his  great  spirit  was  a  sharper 


62  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

spur,  and  when  his  tail  fell,  as  it  did  from  this 
time  out,  I  could  imagine  he  felt  a  sinking  of  the 
heart  as  he  saw  streaming  before  him  the  waving 
flag  of  Lexington,  now  held  straight  out  in  race- 
horse fashion,  and  anon  nervously  flung  up  as 
if  it  were  a  plume  of  triumph. 

"'One  hundred  to  fifty  on  Lexington!'  The 
three  lengths  were  increased  to  four,  and  again 
the  shout  arose,  as  in  this  relative  condition  they 
went  for  the  third  time  over  the  course.  Time, 
1.51. 

"The  last  crisis  of  the  strife  had  now  arrived, 
and  Lecompte,  if  he  had  any  resources  left,  must 
call  upon  them  straight.  So  thought  his  rider,  for 
the  steel  went  to  his  sides ;  but  it  was  in  vain,  he 
had  done  his  best,  while,  as  for  Lexington,  it 
seemed  as  if  he  had  just  begun  to  run.  Gil  Patrick 
now  gave  him  a  full  rein,  and  for  a  time  as  he 
went  down  the  back  stretch,  it  actually  seemed 
as  if  he  were  running  for  the  very  fun  of  the  thing. 
It  was  now  $100  to  $10  on  Lexington,  or  any 
kind  of  odds,  but  there  were  no  takers.  He 
had  the  laurel  in  his  teeth  and  was  going  for  a 
distance. 


THE    THOROUGHBRED     IN     AMERICA  63 

"But  at  this  inglorious  prospect  Lecompte 
desperately  rallied,  and  escaped  the  humiliation 
by  drawing  himself  a  few  lengths  within  the  dis- 
tance pole,  while  Lexington  dashed  past  the 
stand,  hard  in  hand,  and  actually  running  away 
with  his  rider  —  making  the  last  mile  in  1.52f 
and  completing  the  four  in  the  unprecedented 
time  of  7.23f ,  I  say  unprecedented,  because  it 
beats  Lecompte's  7.26,  and  is,  therefore,  the 
fastest  heat  ever  made  in  a  match. " 

I  have  taken  pains  to  transcribe  this  account  of 
the  race  for  a  double  purpose.  This  race  fixed 
Lexington's  place  as  the  best  horse  in  the  coun- 
try and  it  was  also  his  last  public  appearance. 
Then,  again,  I  think  it  interesting  to  show  how  the 
reporters  of  half  a  century  ago  dealt  with  an  im- 
portant sporting  event.  After  this  race  Lexington 
was  taken  back  to  Kentucky  and  covered  thirty 
mares  without  being  thrown  entirely  out  of  train- 
ing. It  was  Mr.  Ten  Broeck's  intention  to  take 
the  horse  to  England  and  race  him  there.  Un- 
fortunately, exactly  how  even  Mr.  Ten  Broeck 
never  knew,  the  horse  was  over-fed  just  before  a 
long  gallop  and  went  blind,  so  he  never  faced  a 


64  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

starter  after  his  contest  with  Lecompte  at  New 
Orleans.  Mr.  Ten  Broeck  and  Mr.  A.  J.  Alex- 
ander meeting  in  England,  where  Mr.  Alexander 
had  gone  in  search  of  a  stallion  for  Woodburn,  a 
bargain  was  struck  and  Lexington  changed  hands 
for  $15,000.  There  never  was  a  horse  in  Ken- 
tucky, or  in  the  world  for  that  matter,  that  was 
held  in  such  esteem  as  was  Lexington.  The  feel- 
ing for  him  was  actually  one  of  reverence.  I  re- 
member being  taken  to  see  him  when  I  was  a 
boy  by  my  father.  We  felt  and  acted  as  though 
we  were  visiting  a  shrine.  When  the  sightless 
veteran  was  brought  from  his  box  it  was  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  for  us  to  remove  our 
hats.  A  few  years  before  I  had  been  taken  to  the 
White  House  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln.  Upon  my  word 
Lexington  to  me  at  the  time  seemed  the  greater 
and  more  impressive  of  the  two. 

This  best  four-mile  record  of  Lexington  lasted 
for  nineteen  years,  when  one-quarter  of  a  second 
was  clipped  from  it  at  Saratoga  by  Fellowcraf t, 
a  colt  by  imported  Australian  out  of  Aerolite,  a 
daughter  of  Lexington.  This  only  lasted  two 
years,  when  at  Louisville  it  was  beaten  by  Ten 


THE    THOROUGHBRED    IN    AMERICA          65 

Broeck,  by  Mr.  Ten  Broeck's  imported  Phaeton* 
the  dam  being  Fanny  Holten  by  Lexington.  Ten 
Broeck's  time  was  7.15f .  Mr.  Ten  Broeck,  by  the 
way,  was  the  first  man  to  take  American  horses 
to  race  in  England.  He  met  with  moderate  suc- 
cess and  thoroughly  persuaded  the  English  that 
we  had  first  class  horses  in  this  country.  His 
Prioress  ran  fifth  for  the  Goodwood  Cup,  much 
to  the  chagrin  of  the  Americans  who  had  backed 
her  heavily.  Even  the  "  Autocrat  at  the  Breakfast 
Table  "  preached  a  charming  sermon  on  the  occa- 
sion. It  was  left  for  Mr.  Pierre  Lorillard  and  Mr. 
Keene  to  win  classic  events  on  the  other  side,  the 
Derby  for  one,  the  Grand  Prix  and  Oaks  for  the 
other.  Lexington's  great  influence  as  a  sire  was 
rather  through  his  daughters;  when  bred  to  im- 
ported English  sires  they  were  wonderfully  suc- 
cessful in  producing  winners.  The  name  of  Lex- 
ington probably  recurs  more  frequently  than  that 


*  This  splendid  sire  was  not  appreciated  in  Kentucky  until  after  his 
death.  Lexington  lost  his  eyes  through  neglect,  and  Phaeton  actually  lost 
his  life.  So  Mr.  Ten  Broeck  had  bad  luck  with  the  two  best  sires  he  ever 
owned.  But  Lexington's  loss  of  his  eyesight  was  probably  America's  gain, 
for  it  is  very  unlikely,  if  this  great  horse  had  ever  gone  to  England,  that  he 
would  have  been  suffered  to  return. 


66  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

of  any  other  horse,  except  his  own  ancestors,  in 
American  Thoroughbred  genealogies. 

During  the  Civil  War  the  breeding  of  Thor- 
oughbreds was  severely  interrupted,  as  in  Ken- 
tucky and  the  South  generally  there  were  sterner 
things  to  be  done.  Besides,  the  armies  were  al- 
ways looking  for  horses  without  any  prejudices 
against  Thoroughbreds,  and  the  guerrilla  bands 
had  an  absolute  fondness  for  them.  It  did  not 
cease,  but  languished.  Immediately  afterwards  it 
started  again,  there  being  many  new  importa- 
tions from  England,  and  in  1866  Jerome  Park 
was  opened  and  a  new  era  in  racing  began.  In 
this  new  era  the  first  horse  to  catch  the  popu- 
lar affection  was  Harry  Bassett,  by  Lexington  out 
of  Canary  by  imported  Albion.  This  horse  was 
the  people's  idol,  and  whenever  he  was  to  run  the 
accommodations  of  the  race-course  were  all  too 
small  to  hold  the  crowds.  As  a  two  and  three- 
year  old  he  won  all  of  his  engagements,  except  the 
first,  in  which  he  started,  when  a  blunder  at  the 
post  took  away  his  chances.  Although  bred  in 
Kentucky,  the  Kentuckians  sought  a  horse  to 
clip  his  laurels,  and  the  choice  fell  on  old  John 


THE    THOROUGHBRED     IN    AMERICA  67 

Harper's  Longfellow,  by  imported  Leamington, 
dam  Nantura  (the  dam,  also,  of  Fanny  Holton, 
Ten  Broeck's  dam).  The  two  met  at  Long 
Branch  for  the  Monmouth  Cup,  two  miles  and 
a  half,  in  July,  1872.  Longfellow  won  so  easily 
that  it  was  difficult  to  believe  that  Harry  Bassett 
was  at  his  best.  And  he  was  not,  for  two  weeks 
later  at  Saratoga,  for  the  Saratoga  Cup,  two  miles 
and  a  quarter,  Bassett  won.  One  of  Longfellow's 
plates  (shoes)  became  twisted  after  he  had  gone 
a  mile  and  a  half,  and  for  the  remaining  distance 
the  horse  had  the  entire  use  of  only  three  feet. 
They  never  met  again.  In  the  stud  Longfellow 
was  a  great  success,  and  Bassett  practically  a 
failure.  The  whole  country  watched  for  intelli- 
gence of  these  two  races,  and  they  proved  con- 
clusively that  the  old-time  sporting  blood  of  the 
people  was  as  rich  as  it  had  been  in  the  earlier 
years. 

By  this  time  the  four-mile  heat  races,  indeed, 
any  kind  of  heat  races,  were  becoming  unpopular 
with  the  managers  of  the  turf,  and  both  breeders 
and  trainers  were  called  upon  to-  turn  out  horses 
that  could  go  shorter  distances  at  an  increased 


68  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

rate  of  speed.  Indeed,  the  English  methods  were 
coming  more  into  vogue.  That  the  votaries  of  the 
turf  might  have  what  they  wanted,  the  breed- 
ers imported  many  new  stallions  and  not  a  few 
mares  from  England.  The  result  was  that  what 
was  needed  for  the  new  style  of  racing  was  ob- 
tained. I  have  often  had  doubts  whether  this 
change  was  a  good  thing  either  for  the  turf  or  for 
the  breed  of  horses.  The  short  dashes  enable  the 
bookmakers  to  bet  against  six  races  in  an  after- 
noon, and  so  largely  increase  the  toll  they  levy 
on  the  public.  The  racing  stables  are  enabled  to 
contest  for  more  purses  and  so  increase  their 
earnings.  There  is  a  greater  demand  for  race- 
horses, so  the  breeders  have  a  larger  and  a  better 
market.  But,  after  all,  the  sport  of  racing  is  only 
permitted  because  it  tends  to  improve  the  breed 
of  horses ;  not  race-horses  alone,  but  because  the 
Thoroughbred,  when  crossed  with  other  strains 
and  types,  tends  to  improve  those  types.  Now, 
does  the  blood  of  the  new-fashioned  horse  assimi- 
late so  well  with  the  common  blood  as  that  of  the 
more  compact,  and  possibly  sturdier,  horse  of 
thirty  or  fifty  years  ago?  My  opinion  is  that  it 


THE    THOROUGHBRED    IN    AMERICA          69 

does  not.  The  modern  race-horse  is  merely  a 
racing  machine,  a  racing  machine  very  much  as  a 
Herreshoff  yacht  is.  The  contrast  between  this 
racing  machine  and  a  Denmark,  a  Morgan,  or 
even  an  ordinary  trotter  is  too  great,  and  good 
results  from  the  crossing  of  the  strains  is  hardly  to 
be  expected;  but  the  tendency  is  all  towards 
greater  speed  for  shorter  journeys,  and  it  will 
doubtless  continue  until  the  men  who  encourage 
and  insist  on  the  new  style  of  racing  bring  racing 
under  the  ban  of  the  law.  Then  will  come  the 
deluge.  The  racing  machine  horses  will  not  be 
worth  their  oats,  and  the  race-tracks  will  be  cut 
up  into  building  lots  for  surburban  villas. 

Between  1870  and  1880  the  coming  of  the 
modern  type  was  clearly  indicated,  but  the 
horses  that  were  raced  in  that  period  were  cer- 
tainly grand  specimens.  The  Bonnie  Scotlands 
were,  at  this  time  particularly  strong.  Among 
these  Luke  Blackburn,  Glidelia,  and  Bramble 
were  probably  the  best.  It  is  a  pity  that  Bonnie 
Scotland  did  not  have  a  better  chance  in  his 
earlier  career.  When  he  arrived  in  America  it 
was  at  Boston,  whence  he  was  taken  to  Ohio.  It 


70  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

was  only  in  1872  that  he  joined  the  stud  of  the 
Belle  Meade  Farm  in  Tennessee.  He  lived  only  a 
few  years  later,  but  in  1882  the  winnings  of  his 
get  led  the  list.  It  was  during  this  period  that  Mr. 
Keene  sent  Foxall  to  Europe,  where  he  won  the 
Grand  Prix  de  Paris,  was  second  to  Bend  Or  for 
the  City  and  Suburban,  won  the  Ces  are  witch 
and  other  great  stakes.  Then  there  were  Falsetto, 
Duke  of  Magenta,  Duke  of  Montrose,  Aristides, 
Eolus,  Grenada,  Grinstead,  Himyar,  King- 
fisher, Monarchist,  Sensation,  Springbok,  Tom 
Ochiltree,  Uncas,  Virgil,  and  Spendthrift,  the 
latter  seeming  to  me  to  best  represent  the  vir- 
tues of  the  old  and  the  new-fashioned  horse  than 
any  other  of  this  middle  period.  But  Bramble 
was  the  most  useful  of  them  all,  being  up  to  any 
weight  and  ready  to  start  every  day  in  the  week. 
The  present  period  may  be  said  to  have  begun 
at  Coney  Island  in  1880.  There  have  been  so 
many  wonderfully  fast  horses  developed  in  this 
twenty-five  years  that  even  to  enumerate  them 
and  their  breeding  would  take  a  book  by  itself. 
The  chief  characteristics  of  the  breeding,  how- 
ever, may  be  said  to  be  in  the  larger  infusions  of 


THE  THOROUGHBRED  IN  AMERICA     71 

the  English  blood,  the  English  having  gone  into 
the  racing  machine  business  before  we  did.  I 
shall  have  to  content  myself  with  going  along  very 
rapidly  now,  and  mention  only  those  horses  and 
events  that  have  enduring  prominence.  One  of 
these  horses  was  Hindoo,  by  Virgil,  the  winner  of 
many  of  the  greatest  stakes,  and  the  sire  of  Han- 
over and  many  another  star  performer.  Thora,  by 
Longfellow,  was  one  of  the  greatest  fillies  that 
ever  looked  through  a  bridle,  and  as  a  matron  is 
one  of  the  exceptions  to  the  rule  that  hardly 
worked  race-horses  rarely  reproduce  themselves 
in  their  offspring.  Miss  Woodf ord,  by  Billet  out  of 
Fancy  Jane,  came  along  about  this  time,  and  was 
so  splendid  a  racer  that  she  was  more  than  once 
barred  in  the  betting  as  invincible.  In  1884  was 
foaled  Hamburg,  by  Hindoo  out  of  Bourbon 
Belle.  This  horse  outclassed  all  of  his  time,  win- 
ning thirty- two  races  out  of  fifty  starts,  was 
thirteen  times  second,  three  times  third  and  un- 
placed only  twice.  His  dam  was  by  imported  Bon- 
nie Scotland.  We  also  had  Firenzi,  Troubadour, 
The  Bard,  and  Emperor  of  Norfolk.  Among  the 
most  notable  contests  was  that  between  Salvator 


72  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

and  Tenny  in  1890,  over  the  Coney  Island 
Jockey  Club  track.  Salvator  won  the  Suburban 
and  a  challenge  was  sent  by  Tenny's  owner  for 
$5,000  a  side.  Mr.  Haggin,  Salvator's  owner, 
accepted.  Murphy  rode  Salvator,  and  Garrison 
had  the  mount  on  Tenny.  When  the  distance  was 
half  over  it  seemed  Salvator's  race  in  a  gallop, 
but  Tenny  made  up  lost  ground  in  the  last  half, 
and  Salvator  won  by  only  half  a  head.  The  first 
mile  had  been  run  in  1.39|,  while  the  mile  and  a 
quarter  was  covered  in  2.05.  Mr.  Haggin,  who  is 
said  to  be  the  most  laconic  and  imperturbable 
man  alive,  is  reported  to  have  remarked,  with  a 
sigh  of  relief  when  the  race  was  finished:  "Un- 
comfortably close."  After  this  match  Salvator 
made  one  more  distinguished  appearance.  This 
was  at  Monmouth  Park,  where,  in  a  mile  straight 
away,  he  ran  against  time  and  covered  the 
distance  in  1.35^.  Salvator  was  by  imported 
Prince  Charlie.  Salvator  was  not  a  success  in  the 
stud. 

In  1893  appeared  another  popular  champion 
in  Mr.  Keene's  Domino,  a  son  of  Himyar  out  of 
Mannie  Gray.  Domino  was  the  perfection  of 


1 

o   ° 

Z    -d 

a  § 


THE    THOROUGHBRED     IN    AMERICA  73 

what  I  have  called  a  racing  machine.  He  won  the 
Futurity  at  two  years  old,  carrying  130  pounds, 
but  by  a  very  narrow  margin.  As  the  chestnut 
colt  Dobbins,  by  Mr.  Pickwick,  had  carried  the 
same  weight  and  seemed  to  have  gained  on 
Domino  in  the  last  few  strides,  there  were  many, 
Dobbins'  owner  included,  who  thought  Dobbins 
the  better  colt.  So  it  was  arranged  that  they 
should  run  a  match  over  the  Futurity  course, 
each  carrying  118  pounds.  They  ran  like  a  match- 
ed team  the  whole  distance,  and  the  judges  not 
being  able  to  separate  them,  it  was  declared  a 
dead  heat.  The  heat  was  not  run  off.  Domino 
made  a  clean  sweep  of  his  first  season.  The  next 
year  he  went  amiss,  and  was  retired  to  the  stud. 
Though  he  only  had  one  or  two  seasons  in  the 
harem,  he  was  a  success,  and  his  name  will  be 
perpetuated  in  the  American  Stud  Book. 

The  next  great  horse  after  Domino  was  Ham- 
burg, by  Hanover  out  of  Lady  Reel  by  Fellow- 
craft.  This  was  a  phenomenal  race-horse  during  a 
long  career,  and  his  get  are  now  doing  him  honor 
on  the  turf.  The  colts  by  imported  Watercress 
have  been  most  distinguished,  and  one,  Water- 


74  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

boy,  was  the  star  of  his  year.  Indeed,  the  horses 
now  winning  the  laurels  seem  to  be  mainly  by 
imported  sires,  though  Ben  Brush  and  Ham- 
burg appear  to  be  holding  their  own  as  sires. 

These  rapidly  sketched  events  I  have  only 
meant  as  illustrations  of  the  four  periods  in  the 
development  of  the  English  Thoroughbred  in  this 
country.  The  first  period  was  Colonial;  the  sec- 
ond period  was  up  to  the  Civil  War;  the  third 
period  from  the  end  of  the  Civil  War  to  1880,  and 
the  fourth  from  1880  till  the  present  writing. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

THE   MORGAN    HORSE 

THE  Morgan  horse  is  the  most  distinctive  repro- 
ducing native  type  in  America,  and  has  been  so 
since  the  family  was  recognized  as  a  type  in  Ver- 
mont some  seventy-five  years  ago.  For  symmetry, 
docility,  intelligence,  sturdiness,  and  speed,  the 
Morgans  have  been  justly  famous  and  have  met 
with  the  approval  of  good  judges  of  horse-flesh 
during  the  whole  of  their  history.  They  reached 
their  highest  fame  during  the  two  decades  between 
1850  and  1870.  After  that,  both  as  a  type  and  as  a 
family,  they  came  near  perishing,  a  victim  to  the 
desire,  which  merits  the  name  of  craze,  to  produce 
trotting  horses  of  phenomenal  speed  by  means  of 
crossing  and  recrossing  with  the  Hambletonian 
blood.  That  there  is  a  revival  of  Morgan  breed- 
ing is  an  excellent  thing  for  the  country,  for  the 
Morgan  is  about  the  best  all-round,  everyday, 

75 


76  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

general  utility  horse  that  this  country  has  had 
and  probably  as  good  as  any  type  in  the  world. 
The  renascence  of  the  Morgan  horse  is  due  to 
the  horse  shows,  which  have  become  deservedly 
popular  in  many  parts  of  the  United  States.  There 
are  those  who  speak  of  the  horse  shows  rather 
contemptuously  as  society  fads  in  which  the 
horses  exhibited  are  of  secondary  importance  and 
interest.  To  many,  who  care  nothing  about 
horses  and  know  less,  it  is  doubtless  true  that  the 
social  side  of  horse  shows  is  the  important,  if  not 
the  only  side.  This  attitude,  even  if  it  be  the  atti- 
tude of  the  majority  of  those  who  attend  the  ex- 
hibitions, does  not  detract  from  the  value  of  the 
shows  so  long  as  the  work  in  the  ring  be  of  the 
right  sort,  and  high  standards  be  established  and 
maintained  as  to  the  various  classes  of  horses  that 
are  produced  in  this  country.  Indeed,  it  is  a  good 
thing  for  the  shows  that  people  with  no  fondness 
for  or  taste  in  horses  should  still  patronize  them, 
for  their  money  helps  pay  expenses  and  makes  it 
possible  to  offer  the  handsome  prizes  which  go 
along  with  the  awards.  If  the  horse  shows  had 
done  nothing  else  than  stimulate  the  renewed 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  77 

effort  to  re-establish  the  Morgan  type  they  would 
have  served  a  purpose  far  from  vain. 

Twenty  years  or  so  ago,  when  the  horse  shows 
began  to  take  the  place  of  the  old-time  county 
fairs,  the  driving  horse  that  was  popular  in  the 
United  States  was  the  Standard  Bred  Trotter, 
which  usually  traced  back  to  Messenger  through 
Hambletonian,  who  has  been  celebrated  with 
such  insistence  of  praise  as  the  great  begettor  of 
trotters  that  the  majority  of  Americans  believe 
all  that  has  been  said  of  him  as  the  actual  and  in- 
disputable truth.  It  is  not  a  grateful  task  to  de- 
stroy established  and  well-liked  fictions,  so  for 
the  moment  I  shall  pass  the  Hambletonian  fiction 
by,  and  devote  myself  to  telling  about  horses  of 
superior  breeding,  better  manners,  higher  cour- 
age, greater  symmetry  and  above  all,  a  prepo- 
tency of  blood  which  reproduces  itself  in  off- 
spring.from  generation  to  generation,  so  that  we 
have  in  the  Morgans  an  easily  recognized  and 
most  valuable  type.  Before  going  on  with  my 
story,  however,  I  must  disavow  any  intention  to 
detract  from  the  merits  of  those  who  have  bred 
and  trained  the  wonderful  trotters  that  have, 


78  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

year  by  year,  been  clipping  seconds  off  the  mile 
record  until  the  two  minute  mark  has  been 
passed.  At  the  same  time  I  wish  to  insist  that  the 
breeding  and  training  of  these  phenomenal  ani- 
mals should  be  left  to  the  very  rich,  just,  for  in- 
stance, as  yacht  racing  is.  The  breeding  of  trot- 
ters is  far  from  an  exact  science,  as  the  trotter,  as 
such,  is  not  a  reproducing  type,  and  only  two  or 
three  in  a  hundred  of  the  standard  breds  ever  go 
very  fast,  while  more  of  the  fast  horses  among 
them  pace  than  trot.  They  are  not  a  type  in  con- 
formation, in  action  or  in  gait;  they  come  in  all 
sizes  and  all  shapes,  and  are  not  to  be  judged  by 
the  two  or  three  per  cent  that  develop  speed. 
Moreover,  they  do  not  pay.  Counting  the  cost  of 
the  ninety-seven  or  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  fail- 
ures, I  venture  to  say  that  the  production  of  each 
successful  trotter  must  cost  in  the  neighborhood 
of  ten  thousand  dollars.  Lottery  prizes,  when  lot- 
teries were  in  vogue,  were  as  high  as  that;  but 
buying  lottery  tickets  was  never  considered  a 
good  commercial  enterprise.  I  sincerely  hope, 
however,  that  rich  men  will  continue  to  breed  for 
extreme  speed,  as  they  can  afford  such  costly  and 


THE    MORGAN    HORSE  79 

interesting  experiments.  The  breeder,  however, 
who  wishes  to  make  his  stock  farm  pay,  and  the 
ordinary  farmer  who  raises  a  few  colts  annually 
will  surely  find  a  more  profitable  business  in  try- 
ing to  secure  high-grade  Morgans  than  in  pursu- 
ing the  elusive  course  which  frequently  leads  to 
bankruptcy  by  the  well-known  Hambletonian 
road. 

The  founder  of  the  Morgan  type  was  a  horse 
born  somewhere  about  1789,  and  was  the  prop- 
erty of  Justin  Morgan,  who  kept  a  tavern  in  West 
Springfield,  Massachusetts,  until  he  moved  to 
Randolph,  Vermont,  in  the  year  the  colt  that  has 
perpetuated  his  owner's  name  was  foaled.  I  have 
examined  all  the  testimony  available  as  to  the 
pedigree  of  this  first  Morgan  horse,  and  I  must 
say  with  regret,  but  with  entire  respect  for  those 
who  have  gathered  the  evidence,  that  none  of  it 
seems  to  me  quite  convincing.  This  was  the  con- 
clusion of  Mr.  D.  C.  Linsley,  who  published  a 
valuable  book  in  1857,  called  "Morgan  Horses." 
Mr.  Linsley  in  his  book  printed  all  the  stories  and 
traditions  about  the  breeding  of  the  Justin  Mor- 
gan with  candid  impartiality,  but  he  did  not  de- 


80  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

cide  that  any  was  correct.  According  to  these  sto- 
ries the  first  Morgan  was  anything  from  a  Thor- 
oughbred to  a  Canadian  pony.  Recently  Col. 
Joseph  Battell,  of  Middlebury,  Vermont,  himself 
a  breeder  of  Morgans  and  the  editor  and  pub- 
lisher of  the  "  Morgan  Horse  and  Register,"  has 
re-examined  all  the  records  extant  as  to  the  owner 
of  the  first  Morgan  horse,  and  he  announces,  with 
a  thorough  belief  in  his  conclusions,  that  the 
horse  was  a  Thoroughbred,  got  by  Colonel  De 
Lancey's  True  Briton  (also  called  Beautiful  Bay 
and  Traveler)  out  of  a  daughter  of  Diamond, 
also  a  Thoroughbred.  According  to  the  Battell 
pedigree,  Justin  Morgan  had  many  infusions  of 
the  blood  of  the  Godolphin  Barb,  the  Darley 
Arabian,  and  the  Byerly  Turk,  and  was  worthy 
to  be  registered  in  the  stud  book  established  by 
the  Messrs.  Weatherby,  in  England.  Indeed, 
Colonel  Battell  personally  told  me  that  he  thor- 
oughly believed  in  the  accuracy  of  this  pedigree, 
adding,  however,  "that  while  the  evidence  is 
strong  enough  to  transfer  property  on,  it  would 
not  hang  a  man." 

As  I  said  before,  none  of  the  evidence  seems 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  81 

quite  convincing  to  me.  And  no  wonder.  This 
horse  died  in  Vermont  in  1820,  and  not  until 
nearly  thirty  years  after  was  there  any  systematic 
effort  made  to  trace  his  pedigree.  During  his  life 
he  was  known  only  in  his  own  neighborhood 
where,  notwithstanding  his  acknowledged  value 
as  a  stallion,  he  was  used  the  greater  part  of 
every  year  as  a  common  work  horse.  My  own  be- 
lief is  that  this  horse  was  very  rich  in  Arab  and 
Barb  blood,  but  not  an  English  Thoroughbred. 
He  had,  so  far  as  his  history  has  been  told,  none 
of  the  Thoroughbred  characteristics.  Nor  had  his 
descendants.  But  whence  his  ancestors  came  and 
where  he  was  born  or  when  are  not  matters  of  so 
much  importance  as  the  indisputable  fact  that 
his  progeny  now  for  a  hundred  years  have  had 
similar  excellent  characteristics  and  have  re- 
mained a  fixed  type,  through  good  and  evil  re- 
pute, so  that  we  know  by  what  we  can  see  to-day 
that  the  old  stories  and  songs  of  our  grandfathers 
as  to  the  strength,  the  speed,  the  beauty  and  the 
courage  of  Morgan  horses  were  more  than  mere 
songs  and  stories  —  they  were  the  truth  put  into 
pleasing  form. 


82  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

This  founder  of  the  type,  when  the  property  of 
Justin  Morgan,  who,  after  he  gave  up  tavern 
keeping  in  Massachusetts,  became  a  school- 
teacher, a  drawing  and  music  master  in  Ver- 
mont, was  called  Figure.  When  the  produce  of 
his  sons  began  achieving  fame,  and  the  family  and 
type  needed  a  distinctive  name,  he  was  called 
after  his  old  owner  (maybe  his  breeder,  for  all 
that  I  can  say  to  the  contrary),  Justin  Morgan. 
His  most  famous  son  was  Sherman  Morgan, 
though  there  were  eight  or  ten  others  of  his  colts 
kept  entire,  and  the  progeny  of  them  have  found 
place  in  the  Morgan  Register.  Mr.  Linsley's  de- 
scription of  the  first  Morgan  is  worthy  of  tran- 
scription : 

"The  original,  or  Justin  Morgan,  was  about 
14  hands  high  and  weighed  about  950  pounds. 
His  color  was  dark  bay,  with  black  legs,  mane 
and  tail.  His  mane  and  tail  were  coarse  and 
heavy,  but  not  so  massive  as  has  sometimes  been 
described;  the  hair  of  both  was  straight  and  not 
inclined  to  curl.  His  head  was  good,  not  extreme- 
ly small,  but  lean  and  bony,  the  face  straight, 
forehead  broad,  ears  small  and  very  fine,  but  set 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  83 

very  wide  apart.  His  eyes  were  medium  size,  very 
dark  and  prominent,  with  a  spirited  but  pleasant 
expression,  and  showed  no  white  round  the  edge 
of  the  lid.  His  nostrils  were  very  large,  the  muz- 
zle small  and  the  lips  close  and  firm.  His  back 
and  legs  were  perhaps  his  most  noticeable  point. 
The  former  was  very  short,  the  shoulder  blades 
and  hip  bones  being  very  long  and  oblique,  and 
the  loins  extremely  long  and  muscular.  His  body 
was  rather  round,  long  and  deep,  close  ribbed  up ; 
chest  deep  and  wide,  with  the  breast  bone  pro- 
jecting a  good  deal  in  front.  His  legs  were  short, 
close  jointed,  thin,  but  very  wide,  hard  and  free 
from  meat,  with  muscles  that  were  remarkably 
large  for  a  horse  of  his  size,  and  this  superabun- 
dance of  muscle  exhibited  itself  at  every  step.  His 
hair  was  short  and  at  almost  all  seasons  soft  and 
glossy.  He  had  a  little  long  hair  about  the  fetlocks 
and  for  two  or  three  inches  above  the  fetlocks  on 
the  back  sides  of  the  legs;  the  rest  of  the  limbs 
were  entirely  free  from  it.  His  feet  were  small  but 
well  shaped,  and  he  was  in  every  respect  per- 
fectly sound  and  free  from  every  sort  of  blemish. 
He  was  a  very  fast  walker.  In  trotting  his  gait 


84  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

was  low  and  smooth,  and  his  step  short  and  ner- 
vous; he  was  not  what  in  these  days  (1857) 
would  be  called  fast,  and  we  think  it  doubtful  if 
he  could  trot  a  mile  much,  if  any,  within  four 
minutes,  though  it  is  claimed  by  many  that  he 
could  trot  it  in  three." 

So  we  see  that  the  founder  of  this  great  type 
was,  whatever  his  breeding,  a  pony  of  most  ad- 
mirable conformation.  In  his  performances  he 
was  the  most  remarkable  horse  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  his  owner.  He  won  against  all  comers  in 
the  various  contests  that  were  indulged  in  by  the 
somewhat  primitive  sportsmen  of  the  Green 
Mountain  State.  He  won  at  walking,  trotting, 
and  running  and  also  at  pulling.  Besides  he  was 
in  great  demand  on  muster  day  as  the  mount  of 
the  commanding  officer,  who  would  make  a  great 
show  on  this  elegant,  graceful,  and  intelligent 
horse.  So  we  gee  the  founder  was  exactly  what  the 
Morgans  have  been  and  are  to-day,  a  good  all- 
round,  general  utility  horse.  And  his  progeny 
have  been  like  him.  Many  of  them,  however, 
have  been  much  larger  and  much  faster  as  trot- 
ters, and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  a  breeder  of 


z; 

< 
O  _ 


51 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  85 

Morgans  stands  as  much  chance  to  produce  a 
very  fast  trotter  as  he  who  breeds  with  speed 
alone  as  his  ultimate  object. 

Justin  Morgan  was  in  the  stud  for  more  than 
twenty  years  in  Vermont,  and  became  the  father 
of  many  sons  and  daughters.  How  many  sons 
were  kept  entire  is  not  known.  Mr.  Linsley  men- 
tions only  six,  but  Colonel  Battell  accounts  for 
twelve  or  fourteen  on  "information  more  or  less 
reliable."  Of  the  daughters  we  have  very  little  di- 
rect information,  but  that  there  were  many  and 
that  they  had  a  great  influence  on  the  stock  of 
New  England,  and  particularly  of  Vermont,  is  in- 
evitable. The  records  of  most  of  the  sons  as  sires 
have  not  been  kept  with  either  fullness  or  cer- 
tainty, and  the  evidence  is  usually  speculative 
rather  than  exact.  This  as  a  rule;  sometimes, 
however,  it  is  exact.  This  is  the  case  with  some  of 
the  progeny  of  Sherman  Morgan,  Bulrush  and 
Woodbury  Morgan.  As  to  the  others  —  Brutus, 
Weasel  or  Fenton  Horse,  Young  Traveler  or 
Hawkins  Horse,  Revenge,  the  Gordon  Horse, 
the  Randolph  Horse,  and  one  or  two  that  went  to 
the  neighborhood  of  Boston  —  the  records  are 


86  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

not  satisfactory.  For  instance,  here  is  the  kind  of 
story  that  was  once  current.  Revenge  was  in  the 
stud  at  Surrey,  New  Hampshire,  in  1823.  The 
dam  of  the  famous  Henry  Clay  by  Andrew  Jack- 
son was  the  noted  mare  Lady  Surrey,  foaled 
about  1824.  She  was  said  by  some  to  be  sired  by 
Revenge.  Mr.  Randolph  Huntington,  the  histor- 
ian of  the  Clay  family  of  horses  and  the  staunch- 
est  advocate  of  their  merits,  does  not  endorse  this, 
as  he  says  that  Lady  Surrey  was  a  Kanuck,  and 
brought  to  New  York  with  twelve  other  horses 
from  the  neighborhood  of  Quebec.  Had  she  been 
the  granddaughter  of  the  original  Morgan,  the 
fact  would  hardly  have  escaped  Mr.  Huntington, 
who  has  also  always  been  a  believer  in  the  Mor- 
gan blood.  But  there  is  very  little  profit  in  dis- 
cussing or  analyzing  these  old  stories.  There  is  no 
mortal  way  of  getting  at  the  truth,  and  we  can  do 
little  more  than  grant  that  many  of  them  are  not 
impossible.  What  is  important  is  that  in  the 
course  of  three  horse  generations  the  Morgan 
was  a  fixed  and  reproducing  type  in  Vermont,  a 
type  which  had  attracted  the  attention  of  breed- 
ers and  horsemen  all  over  the  country  to  such  an 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  87 

extent  that  commissioners  were  sent,  even  from 
Kentucky,  to  examine  and  report  upon  the  stock. 
Sherman  Morgan  was  foaled  in  1808,  his  dam 
being  a  Rhode  Island  mare  taken  to  Vermont  in 
1799.  Of  her  pedigree  nothing  is  certainly 
known,  but  Mr.  Sherman,  her  owner,  spoke  of 
her  as  of  Spanish  breed,  which  means  that  she 
was,  in  all  probability,  a  Barb.  Her  high  quality, 
docility,  speed,  spirit  and  stamina  have  been  tes- 
tified to  in  unusually  trustworthy  fashion.  She 
was  taller  than  Justin  Morgan,  but  her  colt, 
Sherman  Morgan,  was  not  so  tall  even  as  his  sire, 
being  only  13f  hands  high,  and  weighing  only 
925  pounds.  He  was  worked  hard  as  a  young 
horse  on  a  farm,  and  for  many  years  also  driven 
in  a  stage  from  Lyndon,  Vermont,  to  Portland, 
Maine.  His  team  mate  was  another  son  of  Justin 
Morgan,  and  the  "little  team"  was  famous  at 
every,  inn  between  the  two  ends  of  the  route.  In 
that  section  Sherman  Morgan  was  the  champion 
runner  in  the  matches  at  short  distances  then  fre- 
quent in  the  locality.  This  horse  was  also  known 
for  a  time  as  "Lord  North,"  but  there  was  no  ef- 
fort to  disguise  the  facts  as  to  his  correct  lineage. 


88  THE     HORSE    IN     AMERICA 

The  change  of  name  indicates  that  in  1823  the 
true  value  of  the  horse  as  a  sire  was  not  fully  rec- 
ognized. He  died  in  1835,  some  twenty  of  his  sons 
being  kept  entire.  As  in  the  case  of  Justin  Mor- 
gan we  have  no  records  of  the  females  that 
sprung  from  Sherman  Morgan.  His  sons  aver- 
aged 14f  hands,  the  average  weight  being  1020 
pounds.  Here  was  distinct  improvement  in  the 
third  generation,  and  clear  evidence  also  of  the 
prepotency  of  the  blood,  together  with  the  value  in 
breeding  of  the  Arab  blood  when  transplanted. 

Sherman  Morgan's  most  famous  son  was  Black 
Hawk,  foaled  in  1833,  his  dam  being  a  large  black 
mare  of  unknown  breeding,  but  fast  and  superior 
in  quality.  Those  who  had  owned  the  mare  said 
that  she  was  from  New  Brunswick  or  Nova  Sco- 
tia and  of  English  stock.  The  pedigree  manufac- 
turers —  Wallace,  particularly  —  insist  that  she 
was  a  Narragansett  pacer,  with  the  evident  idea  of 
bolstering  up  their  contention  that  all  fast  trotters 
owe  their  capacity  to  trot  to  the  pacing  capacity 
of  their  ancestors.  As  not  two  per  cent  of  Mor- 
gans ever  pace,  including  the  descendants  of 
Black  Hawk,  this  contention  is  preposterous,  to 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  89 

say  the  least.  Black  Hawk's  son,  Ethan  Allen,  was 
a  magnificent  roadster,  and  his  great  speed  in 
trotting  matches  did  harm,  I  think,  to  the  perpetu- 
ation of  the  Morgan  type,  for  the  Morgan  breed- 
ers began  making  efforts  to  get  fast  trotters  rather 
than  to  preserve  the  type,  with  the  result  that 
there  was,  in  the  course  of  twenty  or  thirty  years,  a 
distinct  falling  off  in  the  interest  that  was  felt  in 
these  very  superior  horses.  Ethan  Allen  was  foaled 
in  1849  at  Ticonderoga,  New  York,  and  his  dam 
was  said  to  be  an  inbred  Morgan.  The  colt  cer- 
tainly had  all  the  Morgan  characteristics,  and 
was  the  fastest  stallion  of  his  day,  trotting  three 
heats  with  a  running  mate  when  he  was  eighteen 
years  old  in  2.15,  2.16,  and  2.19.  He  was  also 
the  most  popular  public  performer  of  his  day; 
and  at  that  time  trotting  was  more  attractive  to 
the  people  in  America  than  running.  "No  one 
has  ever  raised  a  doubt  as  to  Ethan  Allen  being 
the  handsomest,  finest-styled  and  most  perfectly- 
gaited  trotter  than  had  ever  been  produced,"  was 
said  by  the  "American  Cultivator,"  in  1873.  He 
was  a  bright  bay,  a  trifle  less  than  15  hands,  and 
weighed  1000  pounds.  He  was  the  sire  of  a  great 


90  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

many  colts  and  fillies,  but  being  kept  in  training 
the  better  part  of  his  life  he  never  had  so  good  a 
chance  as  some  other  horses  to  become  famous  as 
an  ancestor.  Through  his  sons,  Honest  Allen  and 
Daniel  Lambert,  his  name  and  that  of  his  sire 
have  been  kept  very  much  alive  in  the  records, 
for  his  descendants  have  been  fleet  in  the  track 
and  most  successful  in  the  show  ring.  His  daugh- 
ters and  granddaughters  have  also  done  him 
proud,  proving  the  excellence  of  the  Morgan 
blood  as  brood  mares.  It  is  only  when  we  get  to 
his  generation  that  the  chroniclers  take  much  no- 
tice of  the  importance  of  the  females  in  perpetu- 
ating the  Morgan  type  and  family.  Honest  Allen 
spent  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  at  Lexington, 
Kentucky,  and  he  was  mated  with  many  of  the 
best  mares  in  that  section,  his  son,  Denning  Al- 
len, out  of  Reta,  a  granddaughter  of  Black  Hawk, 
proving  himself  one  of  the  best  speed  producing 
sires  the  country  has  had,  one  of  his  colts,  Lord 
Clinton,  being  marvelously  fast  and  courageous. 
Woodbury  Morgan  was  the  largest  of  the  stal- 
lion sons  of  the  original  Morgan.  He  was  14f 
hands,  and  usually  weighed  about  1000  pounds. 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  91 

He  was  in  the  stud  in  Vermont  for  twenty  years, 
and  at  twenty-two  was  taken  to  Alabama,  where 
he  died  from  an  injury  received  in  disembarking 
from  the  ship  that  carried  him.  His  sons  and 
daughters  in  New  England  helped  materially  to 
increase  the  fame  of  the  type,  as  they  were  larger 
than  the  other  branches  of  the  family,  and  had  in 
a  great  degree  the  characteristic  virtues  —  fear- 
lessness, elegance,  speed,  stamina,  and  docility. 
Three  of  his  sons  —  Gifford  Morgan,  Morgan 
Eagle,  and  Morgan  Caesar  —  became  famous 
sires,  their  sons,  grandsons  and  great-grandsons 
being  reckoned  among  the  best  horses  in  Amer- 
ica. One  of  the  grandsons  of  Gifford  Morgan  was 
Vermont  Morgan,  the  sire  of  Golddust,  a  horse 
which  established  one  of  the  most  noted  and  val- 
uable families  of  the  Morgan  strain.  Golddust 
was  foaled  in  Kentucky  in  1855,  and  was  at  his 
best  during  the  Civil  War,  his  opportunities  being 
very  much  curtailed  by  the  unsettled  and  dis- 
tressing social  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the 
neighborhood  where  he  was  owned.  But  he  was  a 
wonderful  horse,  and  having  received  through 
his  dam  another  fresh  infusion  of  Arabian  blood, 


92  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

his  sons  and  his  daughters  were  rich  in  that 
potent  quality,  without  which  no  equine  family  or 
type  has  ever,  in  the  last  few  centuries  at  least, 
been  valuable  or  permanent.  Golddust's  dam  was 
by  Zilcaadi,  an  Arabian  horse  given  to  United 
States  Consul  Rhind  by  the  Sultan  of  Turkey. 
The  Golddusts  were  speedy  horses,  but  speed 
was  not  their  chief  virtue.  If  Mr.  Dorsey,  of  Ken- 
tucky, had  not  been  handicapped  by  the  preva- 
lent prejudice  held  by  the  purchasers  of  roadsters 
against  any  other  than  Hambletonians  as  fast 
trotters,  he  would  have  been  able  to  perfect  a  bet- 
ter type  of  carriage  horses  than  we  have  in  this 
country,  and  have  got,  also,  many  very  fast  trot- 
ters. Golddust  did  get  fast  trotters,  but  his  bent 
was  certainly  in  another  direction  which  was  not 
followed.  He  was  16  hands  high,  and  weighed 
1250  pounds.  He  was  a  bright  gold  in  color  - 
hence  his  name  —  and  the  perfection  of  sym- 
metry, while  his  action  left  nothing  to  be  desired. 
The  third  of  the  sons  of  Justin  Morgan  to  es- 
tablish a  distinct  Morgan  family  was  Bulrush 
Morgan  foaled  in  1812,  and  living  to  the  great 
age  of  thirty-six  years.  The  breeding  of  the  dam 


THE    MORGAN    HORSE  93 

of  Bulrush  Morgan  is  not  known,  but  she  is  said 
to  have  been  a  French  mare,  which  I  take  to 
mean  that  she  was  brought  into  Vermont  from 
French  Canada.  This  horse  left  a  great  many  de- 
scendants, and  they  were  all  singularly  alike, 
generally  being  deep  bays  and  browns  with  dark 
points  and  a  general  freedom  from  any  marks, 
such  as  white  feet  or  white  spots  in  the  face.  They 
were  noted  also  for  the  absence  of  spavins  and 
ring  bones.  They  were  fast,  good  all-round  horses 
—  good  on  the  road  and  in  the  field,  in  harness 
and  under  the  saddle.  They  did  not  particularly 
attract  the  attention  of  trotting  horse  people  until 
Bulrush  Morgan's  great-grandson,  Morrill,  be- 
gan a  family  of  many  branches  —  the  Winthrop 
Morrills,  the  Fearnaughts,  and  the  Dracos  —  all 
of  much  distinction  in  that  field  where  fast  mile 
records  are  considered  the  highest  test  of  merit. 
Suppose  that  we  were  to  concede  that  phenom- 
enal speed  was  the  one  test  of  merit  for  a  driving 
horse  and  then  examine  the  records.  We  should 
find  that  the  majority  of  the  really  phenomenal 
trotters  from  Ethan  Allen's  time  till  now  had  in 
their  breeding  rich  infusions  of  Morgan  blood. 


94  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

As  I  have  said  before,  Ethan  Allen,  with  no  other 
than  Morgan  blood  that  we  can  account  for,  was 
the  fastest  stallion  of  his  time,  and  the  most  popu- 
lar performer  on  the  trotting  tracks,  even  eclips- 
ing the  famous  Flora  Temple  in  his  ability  to  ex- 
cite the  enthusiasm  of  sportsmen  by  the  even- 
ness of  his  work,  the  smoothness  of  his  gait,  his 
endurance  and  courage,  and  that  intelligent  docil- 
ity which  made  him  seem  to  know  in  every  emerg- 
ency exactly  what  he  was  called  on  to  do.  In  his 
great  race  in  1867,  at  the  Fashion  Course  on  Long 
Island,  when,  with  a  running  mate,  he  met  the 
fleet  Dexter,  who  had  taken  from  Flora  Temple 
her  long-maintained  fastest  record,  we  are  told 
that  forty  thousand  people  had  assembled  to  wit- 
ness the  contest,  and  the  betting  was  2  to  1  in  fa- 
vor of  Dexter.  In  Wallace's  "Monthly"  of  ten 
years  later,  there  was  a  description  of  the  race 
that  I  venture  to  reproduce : 

"  When  the  horses  appeared  upon  the  track  to 
warm  up  for  the  race,  Dexter,  driven  by  the  ac- 
complished reinsman,  Budd  Doble,  was  greeted 
with  a  shout  of  applause.  Soon  the  team  ap- 
peared, and  behind  sat  the  great  master  of  trot- 


THE    MORGAN    HORSE  95 

ting  tactics,  Dan  Mace.  His  face,  which  has  often 
been  a  mask  to  thousands,  had  no  mask  over  it  on 
this  occasion.  It  spoke  only  that  intense  earnest- 
ness that  indicates  the  near  approach  of  a  supreme 
moment.  The  team  was  hitched  to  a  light  skele- 
ton wagon;  Ethan  wore  breeching,  and  beside 
him  was  a  great,  strong  race-horse,  fit  to  run  for  a 
man's  life.  His  traces  were  long  enough  to  fully 
extend  himself,  but  they  were  so  much  shorter 
than  Ethan's  that  he  had  to  take  the  weight.  Dex- 
ter drew  the  inside,  and  on  the  first  trial  they  got 
the  'send-off,'  without  either  one  having  six 
inches  advantage.  When  they  got  the  word  the 
flight  of  speed  was  absolutely  terrific,  so  far  be- 
yond anything  I  had  witnessed  in  a  trotting  horse 
that  I  felt  the  hair  raising  on  my  head.  The  run- 
ning horse  was  next  to  me,  and  notwithstanding 
my  elevation  in  the  grand  stand,  Ethan  was 
stretched  out  so  near  the  ground  that  I  could  see 
nothing  of  him  but  his  ears.  I  fully  believe  that 
for  several  rods  at  this  point  they  were  going  a 
two-minute  gait. 

"  It  was  impossible  that  this  terrible  pace  could 
be  maintained  long,  and  just  before  reaching  the 


96  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

first  turn,  Dexter's  head  began  to  swim,  and  the 
team  passed  him  and  took  the  track,  reaching  the 
first  quarter  pole  in  32  seconds,  with  Dexter 
three  or  four  lengths  behind.  The  same  lightning 
speed  was  kept  up  during  the  second  quarter, 
reaching  the  half-mile  pole  in  1.04,  with  Dexter 
further  in  the  rear.  Mace  then  took  a  pull  on  his 
team  and  came  home  a  winner  by  six  or  eight 
lengths  in  2.15.  When  this  time  was  put  on  the 
blackboard  the  response  of  the  multitude  was 
like  the  roar  of  old  ocean." 

The  team  also  won  the  next  two  heats  in  2.16 
and  2.19,  and  Wallace  is  of  opinion  that  the  team 
might  have  won  the  first  heat  in  2.12  had  it  been 
necessary.  This  enthusiastic  description  of  Ethan 
Allen's  performance  was  written  before  Wallace 
"took  a  brief"  for  the  Hambletonians.  Then  he 
belittled  the  Morgans  in  every  way,  and  when  re- 
minded of  his  previous  admiration  of  Ethan  Al- 
len, expressed  a  doubt  of  his  Morgan  ancestry. 
But  the  Morgans  have  kept  on  going  fast,  when  it 
has  happened  to  be  their  nature  so  to  do,  and  that 
really  is  as  much  as  can  be  said  of  any  horses. 
The  dams  of  the  following  remarkable  perform- 


THE    MORGAN    HORSE  97 

ers  were  of  Morgan  breeding:  —  Jo  Patchen, 
Dan  Patch,  Sweet  Marie,  Major  Delmar,  and 
Lou  Dillon,  while  the  only  trotting  inheritance  of 
Rarus,  Fearnaught,  and  Lord  Clinton  was  from 
Morgan  forebears.  The  Morgans  can  go  fast 
enough.  There  is  no  doubt  about  that.  But  that  is 
not  their  chief  value  or  their  highest  merit.  Prob- 
ably not  a  much  greater  percentage  of  Morgans 
would  go  phenomenally  fast  than  of  Standard 
Bred  Trotters  with  no  Morgan  strain,  though  such 
a  proposition  has  not  been  proved;  but  the  Mor- 
gans are  what  the  Standard  Bred  Trotters  are 
not  —  the  Morgans  are  of  a  definite  reproducing 
type,  and  whether  they  trot  in  3.30,  2.30,  or  2.00 
minutes,  they  have  their  typical  excellences  to 
recommend  them  and  to  give  them  a  value, 
which  no  other  horse  type  in  America  can  ap- 
proach, because  they  are  the  best,  most  symmet- 
rical, most  elegant  and  most  docile  harness  horses 
in  the  world,  with  a  stamina  and  a  courage  that 
none  but  Thoroughbreds  approach. 

So  much  importance  has  been  attached  to  this 
matter  of  speed  with  track  records,  that  I  felt 
obliged  to  dwell  on  it  somewhat  in  my  discussion 


98  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

of  the  Morgans.  It  is  really,  however,  much  more 
interesting  than  important.  The  important  thing 
is  to  get  a  breed  of  horses  ninety  per  cent  of  which 
can  go  with  reasonable  speed,  showing  a  clean, 
square  trot  and  graceful  high  action,  and  when  at 
top  speed  be  free  of  clicking  or  forging  or  inter- 
fering, performing  in  this  manner,  moreover, 
without  boots  or  hobbles  and  without  effort,  and 
also  without  tiring  even  when  the  road  is  long. 
And  in  the  Morgans  we  have  such  a  type.  That 
there  should  ever  have  been  any  danger  that  they 
might  have  perished  through  neglect  is  a  curious 
chapter  in  the  history  of  this  country.  It  does  not 
properly  belong  in  this  place,  but  to  that  other 
chapter  which  relates  to  the  chicanery,  the  delu- 
sions and  absolute  forgeries  which  are  so  inter- 
woven with  the  history  of  the  Standard  Bred 
trotter  that  good  men  believe  in  them  though 
they  have  been  pointed  out  again  and  again  with 
elaborate  detail  and  circumstance. 

The  Morgans  are  being  bred  in  many  parts  of 
the  country,  more  of  them  being  in  the  Middle 
and  far  West,  probably,  than  in  Vermont  and  the 
rest  of  New  England.  Their  blood  is  closely 


THE    MORGAN     HORSE  99 

blended  with  many  of  the  families  of  the  Ken- 
tucky saddle-horses,  and  goes  far  in  giving  finish 
to  that  remarkable  type,  which  now  furnishes 
mounts  for  the  great  army  of  American  park  rid- 
ers, while  pretty  nearly  all  the  show  winners  in 
the  saddle  classes  come  from  two  or  three  coun- 
ties of  the  beautiful  Blue  Grass  State.  The  adapt- 
ability of  the  Morgan  blood  to  other  crosses  is  a 
strong  argument  in  favor  of  its  Arab  origin.  That 
its  prepotency  has  continued  so  long  is  another 
argument  in  favor  of  the  theory  that  there  was 
other  Arab  blood  brought  by  the  female  lines. 
These  speculations  and  surmises  we  cannot 
prove,  but  as  there  is  now  a  register  we  can  know 
about  the  latter  generations,  the  good  qualities  of 
which  will,  no  doubt,  show  us  that  we  were  for- 
tunate in  saving  this  invaluable  type  before  it  was 
too  late  and  madness  had  done  its  final  work  of 
extermination. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

MESSENGER  AND  THE  EARLY  TROTTERS 

ONE  of  the  most  important  events  in  the  early 
horse  history  of  this  country  was  the  landing  from 
England  in  1788  of  the  Thoroughbred  stallion 
Messenger,  a  gray  horse  that  had  had  some  suc- 
cess on  the  turf  in  the  old  world,  but  was  scarcely 
what  might  be  called  great  as  a  race-horse.  He 
was  brought  over  here  to  be  the  sire  of  runners, 
and  he  was,  to  an  extent,  as  both  his  sons  and 
daughters  were  good  performers.  His  greatest 
place  in  the  Thoroughbred  records  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  was  the  sire  of  Miller's  Damsel,  the 
dam  of  American  Eclipse,  the  horse  that  upheld 
the  honor  of  the  North  in  the  great  contest  when 
Sir  Henry  represented  the  South.  But  before 
Messenger's  death  it  had  been  recognized  that 
when  he  was  bred  with  the  mares  of  the  American 

basic  stock,  the  produce  had  a  disposition  and  a 

100 


MESSENGER  AND  EARLY  TROTTERS   101 

capacity  to  trot  faster  than  was  then  at  all  usual. 
Naturally,  therefore,  he  was  used  to  further  this 
end  as  much  as  to  sire  runners,  though  there  was 
nothing  like  a  trotting  turf  in  those  days,  the  con- 
tests being  on  the  roads  under  saddle  and  for  con- 
siderable distances. 

Messenger's  sire  was  Mambrino,  by  Engi- 
neer; Engineer  was  by  Sampson,  and  Sampson  by 
Blaze ;  Blaze  by  Flying  Childers  (pronounced  by 
Major  Upton  in  his  "  Newmarket  and  Arabia," 
"the  best  horse  to  be  found  in  the  stud  book"); 
and  Flying  Childers  by  the  Darley  Arabian.  This 
is  pretty  good  breeding,  as  any  one  will  say  who  is 
familiar  with  the  early  English  records  as  kept 
by  the  Messrs.  Weatherby.  But  even  Messenger's 
title  to  be  a  Thoroughbred  has  been  bitterly  dis- 
puted by  the  controversialists  of  recent  time,  this 
controversy  having  been  precipitated  and  intensi- 
fied when,  in  the  effort  to  get  faster  trotters,  it 
was  proposed  to  put  in  more  Thoroughbred  blood. 
The  leader  of  the  opposition  to  more  Thorough- 
bred blood  was  an  able  and  ingenious  writer  who 
has  never  had  his  equal  in  manufacturing  pedi- 
grees to  suit  his  own  theories,  and  at  the  same 


102  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

time  please  the  interests  of  those  who  hired  him  to 
bolster  up  the  merits  of  the  stock  they  were  breed- 
ing to  sell.  He  maintained  that  the  dam  of  Samp- 
son, the  grandsire  of  Messenger,  was  a  pacing 
mare,  and  hence  Messenger's  capacity  to  trans- 
mit the  trot  to  his  progeny.  He  further  affirmed 
that  the  trot  and  the  pace  were  the  same  gait;  but 
of  this  I  will  speak  later  when  I  get  to  the  Stand- 
ard Bred  Trotters.  Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
Godolphin  progenitor  of  Messenger  through  the 
female  line  was  a  Barb,  and  Barbs  are  apt  to 
pace,  though  if  Thoroughbreds  pace  I  have  yet  to 
see  one. 

So  many  fictions  have  grown  up  about  Mes- 
senger that  he  seems  more  like  a  hero  of  ro- 
mance than  a  flea-bitten  gray  horse  of  not  very 
fine  finish,  and  worth,  according  to  the  records  of 
sales,  in  the  neighborhood  of  $4500.  Indeed,  the 
record  of  his  landing  is  so  obscure  that  I  have 
not  been  able  to  determine  whether  it  was  in  New 
York  or  Philadelphia.  But  he  was  in  the  stud  for 
nineteen  years  and  left  many  sons  and  daughters. 
He  was  kept  in  various  places  —  near  Phila- 
delphia, on  Long  Island,  in  Orange  County,  New 


MESSENGER    AND     EARLY    TROTTERS       103 

York,  and  in  New  Jersey.  But  in  each  neighbor- 
hood he  made  an  impression  on  the  horses  that 
came  after  him,  an  influence  which  seems  to  have 
been  both  good  and  enduring. 

Trotting  and  pacing  racing  in  America  had 
been  popular  even  before  Messenger's  coming, 
and  long  before  his  get  and  their  get  appeared  on 
the  road.  But  the  matches  were  neighborhood 
affairs  and  attracted  only  local  attention.  There 
was  absolutely  no  effort  at  organization  and  the 
construction  of  trotting  tracks  until  many  years 
later.  What  racing  there  was  was  in  the  hands 
and  under  the  control  of  gentlemen;  how  much 
interest  they  took  in  these  trotting  and  pacing 
matches  I  do  not  know.  But  not  much  I  fancy, 
for  caste  in  America  was  stronger  and  more 
separating  than  it  is  now,  when,  if  we  put  the 
"mighty  rich"  in  a  class  by  themselves  there  is 
very  little  at  all.  It  was  not  until  between  1820 
and  1830  that  horses  were  trotted  on  tracks,  and 
then  there  was  little,  if  any,  of  this  mile  heat 
business  to  see  really  how  fast  a  horse  could  go  for 
a  short  distance.  What  the  people  of  that  elder 
day  seemed  to  be  most  interested  in  was  how  far 


104  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

a  horse  could  trot  at  a  good  rate  of  speed.  I  will 
not  tire  my  readers  with  a  recital  of  the  fictions  of 
the  contests  on  the  roads  of  Long  Island  and 
Harlem,  but  begin  with  the  race  of  Lady  Kate 
under  the  saddle  against  time.  Her  task  was  to  go 
fifteen  miles  in  an  hour.  This  she  did  and  easily. 
Nor  does  it  seem  much  of  a  task  when  we  con- 
sider that  a  few  years  later  Andrew  Jackson  was 
doing  mile  after  mile  in  much  less  than  three 
minutes.  This  horse,  by  the  way,  was  so  superior 
to  the  trotters  of  the  time  that  his  owner  could 
make  few  matches  with  him.  His  speed  and  en- 
durance frightened  the  others  off,  and  there  was 
little,  if  any,  rivalry.  We  find  it  recorded,  how- 
ever, that  Paul  Pry,  in  1833,  beat  time  in  an  effort 
to  go  sixteen  miles  to  the  hour,  and  Hiram  Wood- 
ruff, then  a  boy,  expressed  the  opinion  that  this 
horse  could  then  have  gone  twenty  miles  in  the 
hour.  This  same  old  driver  tells  of  a  horse  which 
he  thought  was  one  of  the  most  superior  he  ever 
knew,  Top  Gallant,  by  Messenger.  This  fellow, 
in  his  twenty-second  year,  went  four  four-mile 
heats  in  time  very  fast  for  that  day.  A  little  later 
appeared  Dutchman,  who,  in  a  race  of  three-mile 


MESSENGER  AND  EARLY  TROTTERS   105 

heats  against  Rattler,  went  the  distance  in  7.45  J, 
7.50,  8.02  and  8.24,  Dutchman  won  the  first  and 
fourth  heat,  Rattler  won  the  second  heat,  while 
the  third  was  a  dead  heat.  Here  we  see  the  first 
heat  was  trotted  at  the  rate  of  2.35,  which  was 
surely  very  fast  going,  considering  the  distance, 
the  vehicles  used  and  the  shoeing.  But  such 
journeys  are  now  considered  too  far. 

Lady  Suffolk,  an  inbred  Messenger,  was 
spoken  of  for  a  while  as  the  Queen  of  Trotters, 
and  she  was  a  remarkably  good  one  both  in 
breeding  and  in  performance.  She  was  sired  by 
Engineer  II,  by  Engineer,  a  son  of  imported  Mes- 
senger; her  dam  was  by  Don  Quixote,  son  of 
Messenger.  So  it  will  be  seen  that  she  was  closely 
inbred  to  Messenger  and  had  as  much  of  the  Thor- 
oughbred blood  as  any  trotting  horse  of  remark- 
able performance.  She  was  a  gray,  and  was  foal- 
ed in  1833  on  Long  Island.  She  began  trotting 
when  she  was  five  years  old,  and  had  a  remark- 
ably successful  career.  She  trotted  138  races, 
winning  eighty-eight  times  and  receiving  forfeit 
three  times.  When  she  was  twelve  years  old,  at 
Beacon  Course,  Hoboken,  she  trotted  the  second 


106  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

heat  of  a  five-heat  race  in  2.29£,  which  was  the 
first  time  2.30  had  been  passed,  and  was,  of 
course,  the  record.  In  1849  she  made  a  saddle 
record  of  2.26.  She  was  bred  to  Black  Hawk  in 
Vermont,  but  the  colt  was  prematurely  born,  and 
she  left  no  descendants.  Although  this  record  was 
reduced  in  1849  to  2.28  by  Pelham,  a  converted 
pacer,  another  second  was  knocked  off  in  1853  by 
Highland  Maid,  also  a  converted  pacer,  there 
was  nothing  in  the  way  of  trotters  to  take  the 
great  place  of  Lady  Suffolk  until  Flora  Temple, 
the  queen  of  them  all,  came  along  about  1850,  and 
proceeded  to  beat  all  that  attempted  to  rival  her 
for  speed  and  courage. 

When  I  was  a  boy,  Flora  Temple  was  consid- 
ered almost  as  great  as  Lexington.  In  Kentucky 
at  that  time,  her  wonderful  performances,  her 
speed  and  her  courage  were  considered  all  the 
more  remarkable  from  the  fact  that  no  one  knew 
how  she  was  bred,  and  inferred  that  she  had  no 
breeding  that  was  good.  This  was  not  a  fair  in- 
ference. Her  appearance,  her  gameness,  her 
fighting  qualities,  together  with  her  nervousness, 
all  indicated  that  she  was  a  high-bred  animal.  To 


MESSENGER    AND     EARLY    TROTTERS       107 

say  what  that  breeding  was  is  another  matter.  So 
a  pedigree  was  fixed  up  for  her.  On  the  plate  pub- 
lished by  Currier  and  Ives  when  she  was  at  the 
very  zenith  of  her  fame,  her  pedigree  was  set 
down  as  follows :  "  Sired  by  one-eyed  Kentucky 
Hunter,  by  Kentucky  Hunter;  dam  Madam 
Temple  by  a  spotted  Arabian  horse."  I  have  no 
doubt  that  this  pedigree  is  as  arrant  nonsense  as 
was  ever  put  in  print,  and  was  simply  made  up  to 
put  on  the  advertisements  of  the  races  in  which 
she  was  entered.  I  doubt,  even,  whether  there  was 
any  serious  effort  to  trace  her  pedigree  when  she 
was  a  filly,  for  it  was  not  until  she  was  five  years 
old  that  she  attracted  the  attention  of  a  horseman 
and  he  bought  her  for  $175,  and  sold  her  quickly 
for  $350.  Previous  to  that  she  had  been  used  in  a 
livery  stable,  though  I  recall  a  tradition  that  she 
had  been  used  in  a  milk  cart. 

Colonel  Battell,  who  spares  no  pains  when  he 
goes  after  a  pedigree,  investigated  that  of  Flora 
Temple,  and  says  it  is  as  follows:  "Foaled  May, 
1845;  bred  by  Samuel  Welch,  Sangerfield,  New 
York;  got  by  Loomis's  Bogus,  son  of  Lame 
Bogus,  by  Ellis's  Bogus,  son  ot  imported  Tom 


108  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

Bogus;  dam  Madam  Temple,  about  850  pounds, 
bay,  foaled  1840,  bred  by  Elijah  Peck,  Water- 
ville,  New  York,  sold  when  four  months  old  to 
William  Johnson,  of  whom  she  was  purchased, 
1843,  by  Samuel  Welch,  got  by  a  spotted  stallion 
(owned  by  Horace  Terry,  who  brought  him  from 
Long  Island  or  Dutchess  County,  New  York) 
said  to  be  by  a  full-blooded  Arabian  stallion  kept 
on  Long  Island ;  second  dam  described  by  John  I. 
Peck,  son  of  Elijah  Peck,  as  bay  with  black 
points,  bob  tail,  low  set  and  heavy,  very  smart 
and  would  weigh  from  1050  to  1175  pounds, 
foaled  about  1834,  purchased  by  Mr.  Peck  of  a 
Mr.  Randall,  Paris,  New  York.  Sold  when  wean- 
ing with  her  dam  to  Archie  Hughes,  Sangerfield, 
who  sold  her  for  $13  to  Nathan  Tracy  of  Hamil- 
ton, New  York,  who  kept  her  two  and  one-half 
years,  and  sold  to  William  H.  Condon,  Smyrna, 
New  York,  who  sold  to  Kelley  &  Richardson, 
livery-stable  keepers,  Richardson,  New  York. 
Mr.  Richardson  took  her  with  a  drove  of  cattle  to 
Washington  Hollow,  New  York,  and  sold  her  for 
$175  to  Jno.  Vielee,  who  took  her  to  New  York 
and  sold  her  to  George  E.  Perrin,  for  $550,  who 


MESSENGER  AND  EARLY  TROTTERS   109 

sold  her  September,  1850,  to  G.  A.  Vogel,  for 
$600.  A  correspondent  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Times. 
writing  from  Waterville,  Oneida  County,  New 
York,  February,  1860,  says:  "Madam  Temple, 
the  dam  of  Flora,  was  foaled  the  property  of  Eli- 
jah Peck,  Waterville,  Oneida  County,  New  York, 
in  the  spring  of  1840:  her  dam  was  a  small  but 
fleet  bay  mare.  Madam  Temple  was  sired  by  a 
spotted  Arabian  stallion  brought  from  Dutchess 
County,  and  owned  by  Horace  Terry.  Mr.  Peck 
disposed  of  Madam  Temple  when  four  months 
old  for  a  mere  trifle  to  William  Johnson  of  the 
same  place.  .  .  .  Terry's  spotted  Arabian 
was  a  remarkably  strong,  restless,  fast-trotting 
horse,  said  to  have  been  sired  by  a  full-blooded 
Arabian  stallion  on  Long  Island.  He  was  a  great 
favorite  in  this  section,  and  his  stock  for  general 
use  possesses  probably  more  excellent  qualities 
than  that  of  any  other  horse  known  in  this  vicin- 
ity. They  were  uniformly  strong,  with  rare  speed 
and  bottom.  The  general  high  reputation  in 
which  his  stock  was  held  may  be  judged  from  the 
fact  that  George  W.  Crowningshield,  of  Bos- 
ton, owned  a  pacing  gray  mare  of  his  get,  so 


110  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

fast  and  enduring  that  he  sold  her  for  $1500. 
That  was  considered  very  high  in  those  days. 
Madam  Temple  has  always  been  regarded  as  a 
remarkable  roadster.  Mr.  Hughes  sold  her  in 
1846  to  G.  B.  Cleveland,  Waterville,  who  soon 
parted  with  her  to  N.  W.  Moss  of  the  same 
place,  but  now  of  Osage,  Iowa.  By  him  she  was 
kept  as  a  horse  of  all  work  for  several  years,  from 
whom  she  was  purchased  by  James  M.  Tower  in 
the  spring  of  1854,  and  he  subsequently  sold  to 
H.  L.  Barker,  of  Clinton,  Oneida  County,  New 
York,  in  January,  1855,  who  now  owns  her. 
Flora  was  her  first  colt.  Her  second  a  horse  colt, 
was  foaled  in  the  spring  of  1855,  and  was  bought 
by  J.  W.  Taylor,  of  East  Bloomfield,  for  R.  A. 
Alexander,  of  Woodford  County,  for  $500.  This 
colt  was  sired  by  H.  L.  Barker's  Edwin  Forrest 
(a  Kentucky  colt),  now  owned  by  S.  Downing, 
Lexington,  Kentucky." 

So  we  can  take  our  choice  of  pedigrees.  If  Flora 
Temple  had  been  born  a  few  years  later  the  Ham- 
bletonian  advocates  would  surely  have  claimed 
her.  It  has  always  been  a  wonder  to  me  that  they 
did  not,  after  all,  assert  that  she  was  of  collateral 


MESSENGER  AND  EARLY  TROTTERS   111 

blood.  When  her  new  owner  brought  this  most 
remarkable  mare  to  New  York,  he  had  not  the 
most  remote  idea  that  he  held  one  of  the  wonders 
of  the  world.  He  believed  that  she  was  a  pretty 
good  pony,  and  could  strike  a  good  clip  on  the 
road.  She  was  only  14.2  hands  high  and  had  a 
mere  stump  of  a  tail.  Besides,  she  was  nervous, 
and  before  she  "found  herself"  had  a  rather 
choppy  action.  When  she  had  learned  the  trick, 
however,  her  action  was  smooth  and  clock-like, 
and  she  glided  along  with  almost  unapproach- 
able grace.  Moreover,  when  she  broke  she  lost 
scarcely  nothing,  as  she  did  not  have  to  be  pulled 
back  almost  to  a  standstill,  but  caught  her  trot- 
ting stride  from  what  was  very  like  a  run. 

There  are  other  books  in  which  the  record  of 
Flora  Temple  can  be  found  in  all  of  its  proud  and 
brilliant  details.  She  beat  everything  of  her  day, 
beginning  with  the  Waite  Pony  on  the  Blooming- 
dale  road  in  1850,  until  Ethan  Allen,  Princess, 
George  M.  Patchen  and  all  the  good  ones  had  to 
take  her  dust.  She  was  not  used  under  the  saddle, 
but  always  to  sulky  or  wagon.  Hiram  Woodruff, 
her  first  real  trainer,  says  she  was  a  great  weight 


112  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

puller  and  was  not  in  the  least  bothered  by  a  350 
pound  wagon,  but  went  along  with  it  as  merrily 
as  though  she  were  in  a  racing  sulky.  Her  first  de- 
feat was  in  1853  by  Black  Douglas,  a  son  of 
Henry  Clay;  but  a  few  months  later  she  had  her 
revenge  and  beat  the  Clay  stallion  with  apparent 
ease.  In  1856  she  took  the  trotting  record  away 
from  Highland  Maid  by  covering  a  mile  in 
2.24J.  The  record  remained  with  her  for  eleven 
years;  she  reduced  it  in  1859  to  2.19f,  and  so 
she  was  the  first  to  trot  better  than  2.20,  as 
Lady  Suffolk  was  the  first  to  go  below  2.30.  In 
1859  the  little  bay  stump-tail  mare  was  at  the  very 
zenith  of  her  fame,  though  Hiram  Woodruff  was 
of  opinion  that  the  next  year  she  might  have 
surpassed  this.  The  next  year  the  Civil  War 
broke  out  and  she,  not  being  in  good  form,  was 
retired  to  the  breeding  farm  of  Aristides  Welch, 
near  Philadelphia. 

During  the  two  or  three  last  years  of  her  pub- 
lic life,  Flora  Temple  had  nothing  to  beat,  so  she 
was  sent  all  over  the  country  "  hippodroming " 
with  Princess  and  George  M.  Patchen,  variously. 
On  the  farm  she  dropped  a  few  colts.  Two  were 


MESSENGER  AND  EARLY  TROTTERS   113 

by  sons  of  Hambletonian,  and  one  by  imported 
Leamington.  They  have  not  done  much  to  per- 
petuate her  prowess.  My  own  idea  is  that  in  se- 
lecting mates  for  her  the  great  cardinal  principle 
of  breeding:  "like  begets  like,"  was  utterly  dis- 
regarded. The  blood  of  a  Hambletonian  was 
probably  too  cold  to  mate  with  hers,  though  we 
do  not  know  what  hers  was,  and  Leamington's 
conformation  was  too  great  a  contrast.  Though 
she  has  left  no  descendants  that  do  her  particu- 
lar honor,  she  has  left  by  her  performances  im- 
perishable fame  as  the  greatest  trotter  of  her  day, 
and  her  day  lasted  for  more  than  a  dozen  years. 
There  was  a  lull  in  trotting  during  the  Civil 
War,  just  as  there  was  in  racing,  but  after  the  war 
the  trotting  tracks  became  even  more  popular 
than  the  running  courses  —  not  the  most  fash- 
ionable, but  the  most  popular.  Fashion  has  never 
forsaken  the  running  horse,  and  probably  never 
will;  but  in  the  main,  the  trotting  races  have  been 
patronized  and  managed  by  men  of  a  slightly 
different  social  status.  To  be  sure,  there  are  not- 
able exceptions,  exceptions  so  notable,  indeed, 
that  they  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  lift  the  ban  from 


114  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

the  trotting  world;  but  they  have  never  been  able 
to  do  it.  And  even  during  the  ten  years  after  the 
Civil  War,  when  trotting  was  immensely  popular, 
it  was  considered  slightly  a  reproach  to  be  inter- 
ested in  the  sport.  It  was  during  this  period  that 
Dexter  took  the  trotting  primacy  away  from 
Flora  Temple,  and  the  tribe  of  Hambletonian 
came  into  such  prominence  that  the  legislators 
who  framed  trotting-match  rules,  established  a 
register  and  made  laws  fixing  a  standard  en- 
titling a  stallion  or  a  mare  to  a  place  in  these 
sacred  books.  And  so  the  "Standard  Bred 
Trotter"  came  into  being,  and  his  has  been  a 
long  day  —  his  advocates  and  admirers  say  a 
great  day. 


CHAPTER  SIX 

RYSDYK'S  HAMBLETONIAN  AND  THE  STANDARD 
BRED  TROTTERS 

AFTER  Dexter,  in  1867,  took  away  from  Flora 
Temple  the  trotting  record  by  doing  a  mile  in 
2.17J,  his  reputed  sire,  Rysdyk's  Hambletonian 
was  held  in  such  high  esteem  by  those  trying  to 
breed  fast  trotters,  that  they  considered  any  horse 
not  by  him  or  of  his  breed  to  be  not  in  the  least 
worth  while  in  any  attempt  to  improve  these 
light  harness  horses.  So  it  is  quite  impossible  to 
treat  of  the  Standard  Bred  Trotters  without  also 
treating  of  Rysdyk's  Hambletonian.  There  are 
many  who  do  not,  and  never  have,  agreed  with 
the  Hambletonian  admirers,  and  as  I  am  one 
who  once  believed  in  the  fictions  as  to  his  breed- 
ing and  other  excellences,  I  propose  to  be  per- 
fectly fair  by  giving  both  sides  of  the  story  of  a 
horse  that  cuts  a  most  considerable  figure  in 

115 


116  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

American  horse  annals.  Now,  here  is  one  side  of 
the  Hambletonian  story,  and  I  take  the  liberty  of 
quoting  from  Mr.  Hamilton  Busbey,  a  noted 
writer  on  trotting  horses,  and  the  editor  of  a  pa- 
per devoted  to  trotting  horse  interests.  He  says : 

"Lewis  G.  Morris  bred  a  mare  by  imported 
Sour  Grout  to  Messenger,  and  the  produce  in 
1806  was  a  bay  colt  who  developed  into  a  horse 
of  16  hands,  and  is  known  to  history  as  Mam- 
brino.  He  was  never  trained  in  harness,  but  was  a 
natural  trotter.  Betsey  Baker,  the  fastest  mare 
of  her  day  was  sired  by  him.  Amazonia,  a  snappy 
chestnut  mare  of  15.3  hands,  showing  quality, 
but  of  untraced  blood,  and  who  could  trot  to  2.50 
was  bred  to  Mambrino,  and  whose  outcome  was 
Abdallah,  whose  register  number  is  I.  He  was 
bred  by  John  Tredwell,  of  Saulsbury  Place,  Long 
Island,  was  foaled  in  1823,  and  developed  into  a 
bay  horse  of  15.3.  As  a  four-year  old,  he  trotted 
a  mile  in  3.10,  but  was  not  kind  in  harness,  and 
was  principally  used  under  saddle.  He  made  sea- 
sons on  Long  Island,  in  New  Jersey,  and  in 
Orange  County,  and  spent  1840  in  the  Blue 
Grass  Region  of  Kentucky,  In  1830  he  passed  to 


RYSDYK'S  HAMBLETONIAN  117 

Isaac  Snediker,  and  after  many  changes  of  for- 
tune died  of  starvation  and  neglect  on  a  Long 
Island  Beach,  and  was  buried  in  the  sand.  ... 

"The  Charles  Kent  mare  was  a  bay  of  15.3 
hands,  foaled  in  1834,  with  powerful  stifles,  and 
as  a  four-year  old  trotted  a  mile  under  saddle  in 
2.41.  She  was  by  Bellfounder,  a  Norfolk  trotter  of 
15  hands,  imported  from  England  to  Boston  in 
1822,  by  James  Bort.  Imported  Bellfounder  was 
foaled  in  1815,  and  the  blood  of  his  sire,  Bell- 
founder,  is  at  the  foundation  of  the  hackney 
breed.  One  Eye,  a  determined  mare  by  Bishop's 
Hambletonian  (son  of  Messenger),  out  of  Silver- 
tail,  a  hardy  brown  mare  by  Messenger,  was  the 
dam  of  the  Charles  Kent  mare,  who  found  a 
happy  nick  in  Abdallah. 

"  The  fruit  of  this  union  was  a  bay  colt,  foaled 
May  5,  1849,  at  Sugar  Loaf,  near  Chester, 
Orange  County,  New  York.  This  colt,  when  five 
weeks  old,  was  purchased  from  the  breeder, 
Jonas  Seely,  by  a  plain  farmer  with  a  lean  pocket- 
book.  The  price  named  for  mare  and  colt  was 
$125,  and  the  farmer,  William  M.  Rysdyk,  sat 
on  the  top  rail  of  a  fence  and  pondered  for  some 


118  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

time  the  vital  question.  The  outlay  would  em- 
barrass him  if  the  mare  or  colt  should  die.  He  fi- 
nally said  yes,  and  the  mother  and  son  were  taken 
to  Chester.  The  bay  colt,  with  star  and  hind 
ankles  white,  grew  into  a  powerful  horse  15.2, 
and  was  named  Hambletonian.  His  head  was 
large  and  expressive,  his  neck  rather  short,  his 
shoulders  and  quarters  massive  and  his  legs 
broad  and  flat.  His  triple  line  to  thoroughbred 
Messenger,  over  the  substance  imparting  cross 
of  Bellfounder,  gave  us  the  greatest  progenitor  of 
harness  speed  the  world  has  seen. " 

I  once  believed  all  this  just  as  sincerely  as  I  am 
sure  Mr.  Busbey  believes  it,  and,  some  ten  years 
ago,  I  wrote  this  fiction  about  Hambletonian: 

"Messenger  begat  Mambrino,  and  Mam- 
brino  begat  Abdallah,  and  Abdallah  begat  Ham- 
bletonian. Now,  the  race  may  be  said  to  have 
fairly  begun,  for  there  is  scarcely  a  trotting  horse 
in  America  which  has  not  in  its  blood  one,  two,  or 
three  strains  of  this  Hambletonian  blood,  for 
Hambletonian  was  the  great-sire  of  trotters.  He 
was  a  Messenger  on  both  sides,  great-grandson  in 
the  male  line,  and  grandson  and  great-grandson 


RYSDYK'S   HAMBLETONIAN  119 

in  the  female  line,  from  which  also  came  a  new 
English  cross,  for  his  dam  was  by  the  imported 
hackney  Bellfounder.*  In  him  the  Messenger 
blood  was  strong,  and,  himself  a  trotter  of  much 
speed,  though  never  trained,  he  had  the  capacity 
of  transmitting  the  trotting  gait  in  a  greater  de- 
gree than  any  horse  in  history.  ' 

There  are  a  good  many  misstatements  in  that 
paragraph ;  but  when  I  wrote  it  I  was  deceived  by 
the  false  pedigrees  which  have  been  manufac- 
tured and  recorded  in  the  trotting-horse  registers 
and  stud-books.  The  truth  is,  that  Hambleton- 
ian  was  a  bull-like  horse  that  was  trained  by 
Hiram  Woodruff,  but  could  never  develop  a 
speed  equal  to  a  mile  in  three  minutes  —  3.18,  to 
be  exact,  being  the  best  mile  he  ever  did.  As  to  his 
pedigree :  Mambrino,  the  grandsire,  was  by  Mes- 
senger; but  he  was  worthless  and  also  vicious.  He 
could  neither  run  nor  trot.  He  was  bred  by  Louis 
Morris,  of  Westchester  County,  New  York,  and 
sold  to  Major  William  Jones  of  Cold  Spring  Har- 
bor, Long  Island.  As  he  was  worthless  and  a  se- 

*  No  human  being  in  the  world  knows  anything  whatever  about  the 
breeding  of  the  Charles  Kent  mare,  Hambletonian's  dam. 


120  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

rious  disappointment,  Major  Jones  virtually  gave 
him  away,  and  he  was  used  as  a  traveling  stal- 
lion at  a  small  fee.  John  Treadwell,  a  Quaker 
farmer  near  Jamaica,  Long  Island,  had  two 
Conestoga*  or  Pennsylvania  Dutch  draft-mares. 
Out  of  one  of  these  mares,  by  Mambrino,  was 
born  Abdallah.  This  horse  was  so  bad-tempered 
that  he  could  never  be  broken  to  harness,  but 
was  ridden  under  the  saddle.  He  had  no  speed 
either  as  a  runner  or  trotter,  not  being  able  to  do 
a  mile  in  four  minutes  at  any  gait.  He  had  a  mule- 
like  head  and  ears,  a  badly  ewed  neck,  and  a  rat- 
tail.  But  he  was  a  Messenger,  despite  the  Cone- 
stoga crossing,  and  he  was  sold  to  Kentuckians 
for  $4500.  In  less  than  six  months  the  Kentuck- 
ians repented  of  their  bargain,  and  sold  him 

*  I  had  a  friend  who  was  with  the  Confederate  Cavalry  when  Lee 
invaded  Pennsylvania  to  meet  defeat  at  Gettysburg.  He  told  me  that 
the  sleek,  large  Conestoga  horses  that  were  abundant  in  the  section 
traversed  were  too  tempting  to  be  neglected,  so  many  of  the  cavalry 
men  abandoned  their  lean  and  battle  scarred  mounts  and  replaced  them 
with  the  Conestogas.  Before  they  reached  the  Potomac  on  their  retreat 
southward,  these  cold  blooded  draft  horses  were  completely  used  up  and 
the  soldiers  swore  at  themselves  for  their  folly  in  making  the  exchanges. 
The  Conestogas  are  good  draft  horses  and  serviceable  on  farms  where 
no  quick  work  is  required,  but  they  are  totally  lacking  in  speed  and  the 
courage  and  stamina  which  speed  requires.  A  more  impossible  cross  than 
that  between  a  Conestoga  and  a  Thoroughbred  could  hardly  be  imagined. 


RYSDYKS  HAMBLETONIAN 
back  to  New  Yorkers  for  $500  —  Messrs.  Sim- 
mons &  Smith,  Bull's  Head  dealers,  buying 
him  as  a  speculation.  No  purchaser  could  the 
speculators  find  at  any  price,  and  the  stallion 
was  virtually  given  away  to  stop  expenses  of 
keeping.  About  this  time  Charles  Kent  wanted 
a  new  horse  for  his  butcher  wagon,  and  traded, 
through  Alexander  Campbell,  of  Bull's  Head, 
his  worn  out  mare  to  Edmund  Seeley,  a  farmer 
in  Orange  County,  New  York,  for  a  steer  for 
butchering.  The  butcher's  mare  had,  originally, 
been  sold  to  him  by  Campbell,  who  had  obtained 
her  in  a  drove  of  western  horses,  paying  $40  for 
her.  Her  pedigree  was  quite  unknown.  This  mare 
is  known  in  American  horse  history  as  the 
Charles  Kent  mare,  and  is  said  to  be  by  imported 
Bellfounder.  She  was  in  foal  to  Abdallah  when 
Seeley  got  her,  and  the  colt  and  mare  became  the 
property  of  Bill  Rysdyk,  a  hired  man  on  Seeley 's 
farm.  Rysdyk  looked  around  for  a  name  for  his 
colt  —  a  name  which  should  indicate  the  Mes- 
senger blood  in  him.  There  had  been  iii  the  early 
years  of  the  century  a  famous  son  of  Messenger 
named  after  Alexander  Hamilton.  This  horse 


122  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

finally  became  known  as  Bishop's  Hamiltonian. 
In  his  effort  to  borrow  the  name,  Rysdyk,  being 
weak  in  his  orthography,  called  his  horse  Rys- 
dyk's  Hambletonian.  And  so  he  lives  in  history  - 
false  in  his  pedigree  as  in  his  name.  The  public 
of  that  day  believed  this  horse  to  be  a  son  of 
Bishop's  Hamiltonian,  and  for  the  sake  of  the 
Messenger  blood  he  was  served  to  the  best  mares 
in  Orange  County,  and  Orange  County  was  rich 
in  the  Arab  and  Barb  blood  of  the  daughters  and 
granddaughters  of  that  great  and  unbeatable 
trotting  horse,  Andrew  Jackson.  No  stallion  ever 
had  a  better  chance,  and  it  was  almost  impossible 
that  there  should  not  have  been  good  horses 
among  his  get.  And  there  were.  But  the  bad  blood 
of  his  ancestry,  sire  and  grandsire  being  worth- 
less degenerates,  together  with  the  utterly  unmix- 
able  Conestoga  blood  in  his  grandam,  have 
been  continually  cropping  out  in  his  progeny  — 
for  faults  more  readily  reappear  than  perfections 
—  until  now,  when  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
the  boasted  horse  type  of  which  he  is  said  to  be 
the  founder  is  no  type  at  all. 

When  the  pedigree  manipulators  were  manu- 


RYSDYK'S   HAMBLETONIAN  123 

facturing  this  line  of  descent  for  Rysdyk's  Ham- 
bletonian,  Alexander  Campbell,  of  Bull's  Head, 
was  offered  a  thousand  dollars  to  certify  to  the 
stated  pedigree  of  the  Charles  Kent  mare. 
Campbell  declined,  and  ordered  the  Hamble- 
tonian  emissaries  out  of  his  office.  Here  is  an- 
other rather  amusing  evidence  of  the  careful  way 
in  which  the  pedigree  of  Hambletonian  was  bol- 
stered up.  There  was  no  such  horse  as  Bishop's 
Hambletonian.  The  horse  alluded  to  was  Alex- 
ander Hamilton,  or  Bishop's  Hamiltonian.  No- 
body ever  thought  of  calling  a  Hamiltonian  a 
Hambletonian  until  old  Bill  Rysdyk  did  it,  simply 
because  he  was  not  gifted  in  the  art  of  spelling. 
But  this  did  not  bother  the  record  makers.  They 
simply  misspelled  the  name  of  the  elder  horse. 
Surely  old  Bill  Rysdyk  laid  a  spell  on  the  gentle- 
men of  the  press,  and  he  kept  it  to  the  end  as  his 
horse,  shaped  like  a  cart  horse,  rather  than  one 
filled  with  high  blood,  was  a  great  money-maker 
in  the  stud.  His  earnings  by  the  record  were 
$184,725. 

When  there  was  a  great  many  men  interested, 
and  most  sincerely,  too,  in  the  breeding  of  trot- 


124  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

ters,  it  was  thought  to  be  a  good  thing  to  inaugu- 
rate a  systematic  method  of  breeding  and  estab- 
lish a  standard  which  should  regulate  the  records 
that  were  to  be  kept  of  trotters.  By  general  consent 
the  suggestion  of  the  Turf,  Field  and  Farm,  Mr. 
Busbey's  paper,  a  horse  that  could  go  a  mile  in 
2.30  was  considered  worthy  to  get  a  place  in  the 
register.  This  would  have  excluded  all  the  trotters 
previous  to  the  time  of  Lady  Suffolk.  But  the 
matter  was  discussed,  and  Wallace's  "American 
Trotting  Register"  was  accepted  as  the  official 
record  of  pedigrees,  thus  putting  the  business  in 
the  hands  of  the  most  ingenious  partizan  that  has 
ever  been  interested  in  the  horse  business  in 
this  country.  These  were  the  rules  that  were 
adopted : 

"In  order  to  define  what  constitutes  a  trotting-bred 
horse,  and  to  establish  a  Breed  of  trotters  on  a  more  intelli- 
gent basis,  the  following  rules  are  adopted  to  control  ad- 
mission to  the  records  of  pedigrees.  When  an  animal  meets 
with  the  requirements  of  admission  and  is  duly  registered, 
it  shall  be  accepted  as  a  standard  trotting-bred  animal. 

"First — Any  stallion  that  has,  himself,  a  record  of  two 
minutes  and  thirty  seconds  (2.30)  or  better;  provided  any 
of  his  get  has  a  record  of  2.40  or  better;  or  provided  his  sire 


RYSDYK'S   HAMBLETONIAN  125 

or  his  dam,  his  grandsire  or  his  grandam,  is  already  a  stan. 
dard  animal. 

"  Second — Any  mare  or  gelding  that  has  a  record  of  2.30 
or  better. 

"  Third — Any  horse  that  is  the  sire  of  two  animals  with  a 
record  of  2.30  or  better. 

"  Fourth — Any  horse  that  is  the  sire  of  one  animal  with  a 
record  of  2.30  or  better;  provided,  he  has  either  of  the  fol- 
lowing additional  qualifications : — 

"  1.  A  record  himself  of  2.40  or  better. 

"  2.  Is  the  sire  of  two  other  animals  with  a  record  of  2.40 
or  better. 

"3.  Has  a  sire  or  dam,  grandsire  or  grandam,  that  is 
already  a  standard  animal 

"  Fifth — Any  mare  that  has  produced  an  animal  with  a 
record  of  2.30  or  better. 

"  Sixth — The  progeny  of  a  standard  horse  when  out  of  a 
standard  mare. 

"Seventh — The  progeny  of  a  standard  horse  out  of  a 
mare  by  a  standard  horse. 

"  Eighth — The  progeny  of  a  standard  horse  when  out  of 
a  mare  whose  dam  is  a  standard  mare. 

"Ninth — Any  mare  that  has  a  record  of  2.40  or  better; 
and  whose  sire  or  dam,  grandsire  or  grandam,  is  a  standard 
animal. 

"  Tenth — A  record  to  wagon  of  2.35  or  better  shall  be  re- 
garded as  equal  to  a  2.30  record." 

Before  much  had  been  accomplished  under 


126  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

these  rules,  Wallace,  who  was  as  militant  as  he 
was  ingenious,  got  into  a  dispute  with  the  Ken- 
tucky breeders  over  methods  of  breeding,  the 
value  of  thoroughbred  blood,  the  genuineness  of 
his  published  pedigrees  and  about  anything  else 
that  came  along.  So  the  Kentuckians  started  the 
"Breeders'  Trotting  Stud  Book,"  the  standard 
for  it  being  a  little  modified.  In  a  year  or  so,  Wal- 
lace, seeing  that  the  war  was  going  against  him, 
sold  out  his  register  and  retired  from  the  field. 
Then  new  rules  were  adopted,  as  follows* 

'THE  TROTTING  STANDARD 

"  When  an  animal  meets  these  requirements  and  is  duly 
registered,  it  shall  be  accepted  as  a  standard-bred  trotter : — 

"  1.  The  progeny  of  a  registered  standard  trotting  horse 
and  a  registered  standard  trotting  mare. 

"2.  A  stallion  sired  by  a  registered  standard  trotting 
horse,  provided  his  dam  and  grandam  were  sired  by  regis- 
tered standard  trotting  horses,  and  he  himself  has  a  trotting 
record  of  2.30  and  is  the  sire  of  three  trotters  with  records 
of  2.30,  from  different  mares. 

"  3.  A  mare  whose  sire  is  a  registered  standard  trotting 
horse,  and  whose  dam  and  grandam  were  sired  by  regis- 
tered standard  trotting  horses,  provided  she  herself  has  a 
trotting  record  of  2.30,  or  is  the  dam  of  one  trotter  with  a 
record  of  2.30. 


RYSDYK'S   HAMBLETONIAN  127 

"  4.  A  mare  sired  by  a  registered  standard  trotting  horse, 
provided  she  is  the  dam  of  two  trotters  with  records  of  2.30. 

"  5.  A  mare  sired  by  a  registered  standard  trotting  horse, 
provided  her  first,  second,  and  third  dams  are  each  sired  by 
a  registered  standard  trotting  horse. 

"THE  PACING  STANDARD 

"  When  an  animal  meets  these  requirements  and  is  duly 
registered,  it  shall  be  accepted  as  a  standard-bred  pacer: — 

"  1.  The  progeny  of  a  registered  standard  pacing  horse 
and  a  registered  standard  pacing  mare. 

"2.  A  stallion  sired  by  a  registered  standard  pacing 
horse,  provided  his  dam  and  grandam  were  sired  by  regis- 
tered standard  pacing  horses,  and  he  himself  has  a  pacing 
record  of  2.25,  and  is  the  sire  of  three  pacers  with  records  of 
2.25,  from  different  mares. 

"3.  A  mare  whose  sire  is  a  registered  standard  pacing 
horse,  and  whose  dam  and  grandam  were  sired  by  regis- 
tered standard  pacing  horses,  provided  she  herself  has  a 
pacing  record  of  2.25,  or  is  the  dam  of  one  pacer  with  a 
record  of  2.25. 

"  4.  A  mare  sired  by  a  registered  standard  pacing  horse, 
provided  she  is  the  dam  of  two  pacers  with  records  of  2.25. 

"5.  A  mare  sired  by  a  registered  standard  pacing  horse, 
provided  her  first,  second,  and  third  dams  are  each  sired  by 
a  registered  pacing  horse. 

"  6.  The  progeny  of  a  registered  standard  trotting  horse 
out  of  a  registered  standard  pacing  mare,  or  of  a  registered 
standard  trotting  mare." 


128  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

And  these  are  the  rules  that  obtain  to-day  in 
keeping  a  register  of  which  the  rat-tailed  semi- 
Conestoga  Abdallah  is  No.  1. 

It  will  be  seen  by  the  rules  certain  features  of 
the  great  breeding  principle:  "Like  begets  like" 
are  followed,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  some 
intelligent  breeders  have  tried  most  sincerely  to 
embrace  in  the  mating  of  stallions  and  mares  all 
of  the  principles;  but,  as  a  rule,  the  speed  test 
alone  was  considered  instead  of  similarity  of 
blood,  similarity  of  conformation  (for  nature  ab- 
hors great  contrasts),  and  also  performance.  The 
importance  given  to  the  time  tests  and  the  public 
records  and  the  disregard  of  pure  and  similar 
blood  has  detracted,  in  my  opinion,  most  seri- 
ously from  the  success  of  the  experiments  and  the 
effort  to  create  a  type  of  fast  trotting  horses.  Why, 
the  Standard  Bred  Trotter  is  not  a  type  at  all. 
They  come  in  all  sizes  and  shapes,  they  have  no 
fixed  gait,  and  not  more  than  three  per  cent  of 
them  can  trot  fast  enough  to  be  considered  even  a 
good  roadster.  The  visitors  to  the  Speedway  in 
New  York  have  opportunities  to  see  the  best  and 
fastest  trotters  in  the  world.  There  are  certainly 


RYSDYK'S  HAMBLETONIAN 
some  fine  animals  shown  there,  a  few  that  are 
splendid.  But  they  are  of  all  sorts  in  conforma- 
tion and  method  of  going.  It  cannot  be  a  repro- 
ducing type  under  such  circumstances.  When  a 
hundred  colts  and  fillies  are  bred  we  want  many 
more  than  three  of  that  number  to  be  able  to  ac- 
complish the  purpose  of  their  creation.  At  least 
half  of  the  progeny  of  the  Standard  Bred  Trotters 
should  be  trotters  themselves  and  more  than  half 
of  the  remainder  should  be  good  general  utility 
horses.  That  is  the  case  with  the  Morgans  and  the 
Denmarks,  the  two  true  American  types,  for 
these  types  have  substance  and  character,  be- 
sides a  systematic  method  of  breeding  is  pursued 
where  lineage  and  conformation  rather  than  per- 
formance count.  And  even  with  the  Standard  Bred 
Trotters  that  go  fast — the  three  per  cent  of  them — 
quite  half  of  them  are  pacers  rather  than  trotters. 
Gen.. Benjamin  F.  Tracy  said  in  a  letter  to  the 
Turf,  Field  and  Farm,  February  15,  1901,  that 
the  greater  proportion  of  fast  Standard  Bred  Trot- 
ters are  not  trotters  at  all,  but  pacers.  There  has 
been  no  one  to  dispute  this  statement,  which  was 
not  one  merely  of  opinion,  but  of  compilation. 


130  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

The  trotting  men,  however,  avoid  this  by  say- 
ing that  trotting  and  pacing  are  the  same  gait,  be- 
cause many  horses  both  trot  and  pace  and  be- 
cause a  pacer  can  be  converted  into  a  trotter. 
This  theory  is  beyond  my  intelligence.  I  know 
that  the  natural  gaits  of  a  natural  horse  are  walk, 
trot,  and  gallop.  Many  that  do  these  gaits,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Denmarks,  can  do  several  others 
besides  —  the  rack  and  the  running  walk,  for  in- 
stance. Yet  no  one  will  say  that  these  gaits  are  all 
the  same.  It  is  too  preposterous  to  discuss.  Be- 
sides, the  pace  is  not  a  fit  gait  for  a  gentleman's 
roadster.  It  may  be  well  enough  for  butchers, 
barkeepers  and  gamblers,  but  a  gentleman 
should  have  a  gentleman's  horse. 

It  has  not  been  a  pleasure  to  say  these  things  of 
what  some  call  the  great  light  harness  horse  of 
America;  but  when  breeders,  through  false  prin- 
ciples, go  a  wrong  road  it  ought  not  to  be  con- 
sidered an  unkindness  to  call  their  attention  to 
the  fact.  A  few  years  ago  in  a  magazine  article  I 
told  the  truth  about  Hambletonian's  breeding, 
and  received  many  indignant  letters  of  protest. 
One  kind  gentleman  up  in  Massachusetts,  asked 


RYSDYK'S   HAMBLETONIAN  131 

me  to  visit  him,  saying  he  should  like  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  kicking  me  across  the  state.  I  re- 
quested him  to  have  a  survey  made  so  that  I 
might  know  how  far  I  would  have  to  be  propelled 
by  the  toe  of  his  boot,  as  I  did  not  care  to  put  him 
to  an  undue  amount  of  trouble.  He  has  not  re- 
plied, so,  I  presume  the  survey  is  not  yet  com- 
pleted. But  breeders  in  Kentucky,  in  Vermont, 
and  in  Illinois  wrote  in  complimentary  terms, 
saying  that  they  had  paid  dearly  for  their  belief 
in  false  pedigrees  and  false  principles  of  breeding. 
I  am  thoroughly  persuaded  that  these  false  notions 
have  cost  the  breeders  of  America  millions  and 
millions  of  dollars,  for  a  Standard  Bred  Trotter 
that  does  not  go  fast  is  a  pretty  poor  specimen  of 
a  horse  and  worth  very  little,  while  the  amounts 
spent  in  trying  to  develop  speed  which  does  not 
exist  are  colossal. 

But  the  records  have  unquestionably  been 
lowered  until  the  horse  that  can  trot  a  mile  in  two 
minutes  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  Look 
at  the  record  of  progression. 

Boston  Blue,  black  gelding 1818     3 . 00 

Bull  Calf,  bay  gelding 1830    2.47} 


THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

Edwin  Forrest,  black  gelding 1838  2 . 36^ 

Dutchman,  bay  gelding 1839  2 . 32 

Lady  Suffolk,  gray  mare 1845  2.29J 

Pelham  (converted  pacer),  bay  gelding 1849  2.28 

Highland  Maid  (converted  pacer),  bay  mare.  1853  2 . 27 

Flora  Temple,  bay  mare 1856  2 . 24  J 

Flora  Temple,  bay  mare ,. . 1859  2. 19J 

Dexter,  brown  gelding 1867  2.17} 

Goldsmith  Maid,  bay  mare 1871  2. 17 

Goldsmith  Maid,  bay  mare 1874  2 . 14 

Rarus,  bay  gelding 1878  2. 13} 

St.  Julien,  bay  gelding 1879  2. 12f 

Maud  S.,  chestnut  mare 1880  2. lOf 

Maud  S.,  chestnut  mare 1881  2.10} 

Jay-eye-See,  black  gelding 1884  2 . 10 

Maud  S.,  chestnut  mare 1884  2 . 09} 

Maud  S.,  chestnut  mare 1885  2.08f 

Sunol,  bay  mare 1891  2 . 08} 

Nancy  Hanks,  brown  mare 1892  2 . 04 

Alix,  bay  mare 1894  2.03J 

The  Abbot,  bay  gelding 1900  2.03} 

Cresceus,  chestnut  horse 1901  2 . 02} 

Lou  Dillon,  chestnut  mare 1903  1 . 58J 

This  table  shows  that  three  minutes  was  re- 
duced in  forty-one  years  to  two  minutes  and 
twenty  seconds  —  that  is  in  that  time  forty  sec- 
onds were  lopped  off  the  record.  It  took  forty- 
four  years  to  take  off  the  next  twenty  seconds.  In 


H    « 

li 
a 


= 


RYSDYK'S   HAMBLETONIAN  133 

the  meantime  the  bicycle,  ball-bearing  sulky  had 
been  invented,  and  the  last  half  of  this  twenty 
seconds  were  cut  off  when  this  weightless  and 
f  rictionless  vehicle  was  used.  The  Standard  Bred 
Trotter  had  also  been  created.  My  idea  is  that  the 
Dutchman,  Henry  Clay,  and  Lady  Suffolk  could 
either  of  them  gone  a  mile  in  from  ten  to  fifteen 
seconds  faster  than  they  did  under  modern  con- 
ditions of  training,  driving,  shoeing  and  harness- 
ing and  hitched  to  the  modern  vehicle.  These  ex- 
periments have  all  been  very  interesting,  but  I 
believe  the  same  results  might  have  been  achiev- 
ed at  a  very  much  less  cost  and  loss  —  indeed, 
with  a  profit. 

Exceeding  high  prices  for  trotting-horses  have 
been  very  injurious  to  the  horse-breeding  indus- 
try. Whenever  a  trotting-horse  brings  twenty, 
forty  or  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  it  sets  the 
breeders,  even  the  small  ones  wild  with  a  desire  to 
breed  a  colt  that  will  bring  such  a  price.  Mr.  Bon- 
ner  began  this  with  his  purchase  of  Dexter,  and 
followed  it  up  by  buying  many  others  at  very  high 
figures,  including  Maud  S.  and  Sunol.  He  doubt- 
less found  this  an  excellent  advertisement  for 


134  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

himself  and  his  paper,  but  it  was  a  bad  thing  for 
the  horses  of  the  country.  The  purchase  of  Axtell 
at  $105,000  and  Arion  at  $125,000  was  even  more 
demoralizing.  No  trotting-horse  was  ever  worth 
that  much  and  none  probably  ever  will  be.  How- 
ever, it  is  an  excellent  thing  for  very  rich  men  to 
breed  horses.  They  can  afford  to  make  experi- 
ments, and  if  their  experiments  are  successful  the 
men  of  moderate  means  can  imitate  them  and 
succeed  also.  But  this  trotting  horse  breeding 
business  is  a  rich  man's  divertisement  just  as 
yachting  is.  The  men  who  breed  for  profit  should 
confine  themselves  to  types  which  are  reproduc- 
ing, to  types  which  come  true  more  frequently 
than  they  prove  false. 

I  firmly  believe  that  if  these  trotters  are  ever 
made  a  consistently  reproducing  type,  it  will  be  by 
constant  infusions  of  a  mixture  of  trotting  blood 
—  Morgan  or  Clay  —  with  that  of  the  Thorough- 
bred. The  first  cross  will  probably  not  produce 
it,  but  if  the  mares  of  such  unions  be  bred  back  to 
stallions  of  the  blood  mentioned,  the  result  ought 
to  be  more  satisfactory  in  the  way  of  making  a 
type,  even  though  the  experiments  may  not  re- 


RYSDYK'S   HAMBLETONIAN  135 

suit  in  phenomenal  speed ;  but  there  is  no  reason 
why  there  should  not  be  a  satisfactory  percent- 
age of  phenomenal  speed  as  well. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

THE    CLAY    AND    CLAY-ARABIAN 

HENRY  CLAY  was  one  of  the  greatest  horses  that 
ever  lived  in  this  country.  He  was  very  fast,  very 
strong  and  as  game  as  it  was  possible  for  a  horse 
to  be.  He  founded  a  distinguished  family,  and 
from  that  family  Mr.  Randolph  Huntington,  of 
Fleetwood  Farm,  Oyster  Bay,  Long  Island,  by 
crossing  Clay  mares  with  Arab  and  Barb  stal- 
lions, has  created  a  type  of  as  splendid  horses  as 
ever  touched  the  earth.  And  it  is  a  great  pity  that 
the  United  States  Government  has  not  long  ago 
taken  over  all  of  Mr.  Huntington's  horses,  so  as  to 
perpetuate  this  new  and  useful  type  into  a  great 
national  horse.  On  the  sire's  side  Henry  Clay  was 
a  closely  inbred  Messenger.  He  was  by  Andrew 
Jackson,  the  greatest  trotting  horse  of  his  day, 
and  absolutely  unbeaten  during  all  his  long  ca- 
reer. Andrew  Jackson  was  by  Young  Bashaw, 

136 


THE     CLAY    AND     CLAY-ARABIAN  137 

and  his  dam  was  by  Why  Not,  by  imported  Mes- 
senger, the  grandam  also  being  by  imported  Mes- 
senger. Young  Bashaw  was  by  the  imported 
Arabian  Grand  Bashaw,  the  dam  being  Pearl  by 
First  Consul  (Arab  bred)  out  of  Fancy  by  im- 
ported Messenger  out  of  a  daughter  of  Rocking- 
ham.  Henry  Clay's  dam  was  the  famous  mare, 
Lady  Surrey.  She  was  bred  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Quebec,  Ontario,  and  was  brought  with 
twelve  other  horses  into  New  York.  With  her 
mate, "  Croppy,"  she  was  sold  to  one  of  the  Wisner 
family  in  Goshen,  New  York.  The  class  to  which 
Lady  Surrey  belonged  was  then  called  Kanucks, 
though  some  called  them  "Pile  Drivers,"  because 
of  their  high-knee  action.  Records  of  breeding 
were  not  kept  in  Quebec,  but  all  the  external 
evidence  points  to  an  Oriental  origin  of  the 
horses  that  were  taken  there  from  France.  But 
the  strong  admixture  of  Arab  and  Barb  blood  in 
Henry  Clay  is  evident  from  the  recorded  part  of 
his  pedigree  and  disregarding  the  blood  of  his  dam. 
Henry  Clay  was  foaled  in  1837,  and  lived  until 
1867.  He  was  bred  by  Mr.  George  M.  Patchen, 
of  New  Jersey,  and  afterwards  passed  into  the 


138  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

hands  of  Gen.  William  Wadsworth,  of  Geneseo, 
New  York.  Probably,  if  he  had  remained  the 
property  of  Patchen,  he  would  have  had  a  better 
chance  as  a  sire,  for  there  were  times  during  the 
Wadsworth  ownership,  when  this  horse  suffered 
alternately  from  neglect  and  abuse.  When  Gen- 
eral Wadsworth,  wanted  to  buy  the  colt,  he  asked 
Mr.  Patchen  to  put  a  price  on  him.  Mr.  Patchen, 
not  anxious  to  sell,  finally  put  on  a  price  which  he 
thought  prohibitive.  "  We  will  give  the  horse  all 
the  water  he  can  drink,"  he  said  to  General 
Wadsworth,  "  and  then  weigh  him,  and  you  may 
give  me  one  dollar  a  pound  for  him."  General 
Wadsworth  promptly  accepted,  and  the  horse 
weighing  1050  pounds,  that  fixed  the  price,  which 
was  paid  immediately,  and  the  horse  was  sent  at 
once  to  Livingston  County,  New  York. 

Once  when  General  Wadsworth  had  a  match 
at  mile  heats,  best  three  in  five,  he  drove  his  horse 
ninety-eight  miles  the  day  before  the  race,  rather 
than  pay  forfeit,  and  then  won  the  race,  one  heat 
being  trotted  in  2.35.  This  was  in  1847.  Consider 
the  clumsy  shoes,  the  heavy  sulkies,  and  other 
impedimenta  of  that  time,  in  comparison  with 


THE    CLAY    AND     CLAY-ARABIAN  139 

the  wire-like  plates,  ball-bearing,  pneumatic- 
tired  sulkies,  and  cobweb-like  harness  of  to-day, 
and  decide  whether  even  the  most  phenomena] 
of  our  trotters  is  better  than  that. 

Another  performance  shows  the  stoutness  of 
heart  of  this  great  horse.  General  Wadsworth 
needed  a  doctor  for  his  sister.  Henry  Clay  was 
harnessed  to  a  two-seated  wagon,  did  the  journey 
from  Geneseo  to  Rochester,  thirty-eight  miles, 
and  then  back  again,  the  whole  seventy-six  miles 
being  covered  in  less  than  five  hours.  A  horse  that 
could  do  that  was  worthy  to  found  a  family.  He 
did  this  through  his  son,  Black  Douglas,  his 
grandson,  Cassius  M.  Clay,  and  his  grandson, 
George  M.  Patchen.  His  female  descendants  are 
conspicuous  in  the  trotting-horse  pedigrees,  the 
most  conspicuous  among  them  being  Green 
Mountain  Maid,  the  dam  of  Electioneer,  and 
conceded  by  the  Standard  Bred  Trotter  element 
to  be  the  greatest  dam  in  American  horse 
history.  She  was  got  by  Harry  Clay,*  a  great 
grandson  of  the  founder  of  the  family. 

*  It  has  been  said  that  the  Star  mare,  the  dam  of  Dexter,  was  served 
both  by  Rysdyk's  Hambletonian  and  Harry  Clay  the  spring  before  Dex- 


140  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

Mr.  Huntington  has  long  believed  that  the 
Clay  was  the  best  trotting  blood  in  America,  and 
when  this  blood  was  spoken  of  contemptuously 
by  Mr.  Robert  Bonner  and  called  "Sawdust" 
Mr.  Huntington's  indignation  knew  no  bounds. 
However,  the  blood  could  never  become  unpopu- 
lar after  the  record  of  the  Green  Mountain  Maid 
in  producing  trotters.  All  of  her  colts  could  trot  — 
she  had  sixteen  —  and  trot  fast.  But  Mr.  Hunt- 
ington's opportunity  to  utilize  this  Clay  blood 
came  when  General  Grant  received  a  present  of 
two  stallions  from  the  Sultan  of  Turkey.  When 

ter's  birth,  and  that  it  is  more  likely  that  Harry  Clay  was  the  sire  of  Dexter 
because  of  Dexter's  resemblance  to  the  Clays  rather  than  the  Hamble- 
tonians,  and  also  because  of  his  stoutness  of  heart.  As  Dexter  was  a  geld- 
ing and  incapable  of  leaving  progeny  this  question  is  more  interesting  than 
important.  I  have  no  opinion  in  the  matter,  but  as  I  am  convinced  of  the 
general  inaccuracy  of  the  records  of  the  day,  I  am  not  at  all  prepared  to 
believe  that  Dexter's  pedigree  as  put  in  the  books  is  accurate.  About  the 
time  he  became  famous  the  Hambletonian  party  was  numerous  and  pow- 
erful and  by  no  means  scrupulous  in  claiming  everything  in  sight. 

The  dam  of  the  trotting  stallion  George  Wilkes  was  also  said  to  be  by 
Henry  Clay.  The  Hambletonian  advocates  —  George  Wilkes  was  sired  by 
Hambletonian  —  were  so  bitter  in  their  opposition  to  the  Clay  blood,  that 
they  refused  to  accept  this  and  preferred  that  the  breeding  of  George 
Wilkes'  dam  should  be  set  down  as  unknown.  I  have  read  a  good  deal  that 
has  been  written  on  the  subject  and  can  only  say  that  the  statements  pro 
and  con  are  equally  unconvincing  and  only  illustrate  over  a^ain  the  utter 
untrustworthiness  of  the  early  records,  together  with  the  partizan  dis- 
courtesy of  the  disputants. 


THE     CLAY    AND     CLAY-ARABIAN  141 

General  Grant  took  his  famous  trip  around  the 
world,  the  Sultan  entertained  him  at  Constanti- 
nople. Among  the  things  that  particularly  inter- 
ested the  General  there  were  the  Sultan's  stables. 
The  Sultan  hearing  of  this,  selected  two  of  the 
best  stallions  in  his  collection  and  gave  them  to 
the  General.  The  stallions  were  Leopard,  an 
Arab,  and  Linden  Tree,  a  Barb.  Mr.  Hunting- 
ton  at  once  set  about  getting  General  Grant's 
consent  to  use  these  horses  for  breeding.  He  got 
the  consent  and  set  about  securing  what  he  con- 
sidered proper  mares.  It  seems  a  pity  that  Gen- 
eral Grant  had  not  turned  these  horses  entirely 
over  to  Mr.  Huntington.  He  was  not  himself  a 
breeder,  and  after  he  reached  middle  life  was 
only  interested  in  driving  horses.  So  these  stal- 
lions were  really  white  elephants  on  his  hands. 
But  Mr.  Huntington  might  have  made  a  more 
extensive  use  of  them  than  he  did.  His  theory  was 
that  these  horses  should  be  bred  to  virgin  Clay 
mares.  And  he  secured  several  of  them.  As  a 
breeder  Mr.  Huntington  is  one  of  those  who  hold 
to  the  theory  that  a  mare  once  pregnant  to  a 
horse  is  liable,  if  not  likely,  in  later  foals  to 


142  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

"throw  back",  as  it  is  somewhat  technically  ex- 
pressed, and  show  in  these  later  foals  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  sire  of  the  first  pregnancy.  This  is 
a  matter  of  dispute  among  breeders.  The  theory 
has  been  proved,  so  far  as  dogs  are  concerned,  in 
my  own  experience.  I  had  a  fox  terrier  bitch. 
She  was  accidentally  served  by  a  spaniel.  When 
she  was  next  bred  it  was  to  a  proper  fox  terrier 
and  there  was  no  chance  of  error.  The  ensuing  lit- 
ter of  puppies  was  a  mongrel  lot,  showing  spaniel 
traces,  and  all  of  them  had  to  be  destroyed.  Then, 
as  to  horses.  Mr.  Bruce  said  that  Dr.  Warfield, 
the  breeder  of  Lexington,  had  had  thorough- 
bred mares  served  by  Jacks  for  the  producing  of 
mules,  and  later  had  got  winning  colts  from  the 
same  mares  by  Thoroughbred  stallions.  It  is  an 
interesting  matter  with  breeders  and  by  no  means 
settled.  But  Mr.  Huntington  did  not  want  to  take 
any  chances  in  making  this  new  venture,  so  he 
sought  and  obtained  virgin  mares,  that  the  pro- 
geny might  not  be  tainted  with  other  than  the 
blood  of  the  sires. 

Mr.  Huntington  also  holds  to  the  theory  that 
when  breeding  with  homogeneous  blood  that 


THE    CLAY    AND    CLAY-ARABIAN  143 

the  degree  of  consanguinity  between  sire  and 
dam  may  be  very  much  closer  than  is  the  usual 
practice.  In  other  words,  he  is  an  advocate  of  in- 
breeding so  long  as  the  experiments  be  not  be- 
tween horses  of  heterogeneous  and  unmixable 
blood.  Under  the  latter  circumstances  he 
thoroughly  agrees  with  the  rest  of  the  world  that 
the  mongrelization  of  the  product  is  increased. 
Indeed,  it  can  be  increased  in  no  way  more  surely, 
for  the  prevailing  characteristics  of  an  animal 
type  are  increased  by  inbreeding  and  when  the 
animals  are  mongrels  to  begin  with,  that  which  is 
bad  in  them  becomes  more  and  more  exaggerated 
in  the  offspring.  Mr.  Huntington  has  been  a 
breeder  and  a  writer  on  breeding  for  more  than 
half  a  century.  In  a  controversy  he  is,  what  may  be 
called,  without  any  offense  to  him,  I  am  sure,  decid- 
edly militant.  It  has,  therefore,  been  the  case  that 
not  unfrequently  his  discussions  as  to  the  breed- 
ing of  horses  have  been  fast  and  furious.  If  I  dis- 
agreed with  him  in  his  conclusions  I  should  re- 
frain from  saying  this  —  indeed,  I  should  not  re- 
mark his  personal  characteristics  at  all.  But  I 
feel  that  the  misrepresentations  to  which  he  has 


144  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

been  subjected  should  be  spoken  of,  for  they  have 
been  cruel  and  continuous,  and  have  done  great 
injustice  to  one  of  the  most  sincere,  most  honest 
and  most  capable  horse  breeders  who  has  ever 
lived  and  worked  in  this  country.  Moreover,  he 
has  had  more  than  a  due  share  of  misfortune  in 
one  way  and  another. 

When  he  had  got  well  along  with  his  experi- 
ments with  the  Clay  mares  and  the  Grant  stal- 
lions, and  proved  to  his  own  satisfaction  and  that, 
also,  of  many  of  the  friends  who  were  observing 
his  operations,  it  was  considered  desirable  to  en- 
large the  plant.  There  were  few  sales,  for  the  ob- 
viously wise  course  was  to  keep  the  collection  to- 
gether for  observation  and  until  the  type  sought 
after  should  be  fixed  and  reproducing.  So  more 
capital  was  taken  in,  and  a  man  considered  one 
of  the  chief  financial  lawyers  of  New  York,  or- 
ganized a  company  and  became  its  treasurer.  In 
a  year  or  so  this  lawyer  was  apprehended  in  some 
of  the  most  far  reaching  financial  rascalities  ever 
perpetrated  in  the  metropolis.  He  ruined  estates 
in  his  charge,  and  corporations  with  which  he 
was  connected.  Mr.  Huntington's  horse-breeding 


THE     CLAY    AND     CLAY-ARABIAN  145 

company  among  the  others.  Here  was  a  blow. 
The  collection  had  to  be  dispersed  just  as  it  had 
arrived  at  success.  Though  at  that  time  Mr. 
Huntington  was  an  old  man,  he  did  not  give  up. 
He  bought  what  of  the  collection  he  could,  and 
started  in  again.  His  second  attempt  proves 
that  he  is  entirely  right,  as  he  produces  with  an 
absolute  certainty  two  classes  of  as  admirable 
horses  as  I  have  ever  seen.  The  first,  and  the  one 
that  ought  to  be  most  useful,  is  represented  in  the 
illustration  in  this  book  of  Clay-Kismet,  and  the 
other  by  Nimrod.  Clay-Kismet  is  16£  hands  high, 
and  is  as  perfectly  adapted  for  a  carriage  horse  as 
any  I  have  seen  —  as  well  adapted  even  as  the 
Golddust,  of  which  I  spoke  in  the  Morgan 
chapter.  His  symmetry,  finish  and  high  breeding 
adapt  him  particularly  for  this,  while  the  clean- 
ness of  his  action  gives  a  final  perfection  that 
cannot  fail  to  excite  admiration  in  those  who 
know  and  love  horses.  He  is  by  an  Arab  stallion  15 
hands  in  stature,  out  of  a  closely  inbred  Clay 
mare,  the  union  resulting  in  a  horse  larger  than 
either  sire  or  dam.  It  is  a  singular  thing  that  even 
the  purely  bred  Arabs,  mated  by  Mr.  Hunting- 


146  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

ton  and  bred  on  his  place,  increase  very  much  in 
size  and  action.  For  instance,  Khaled,  when  I  last 
saw  him  was  15.3 \  hands,  which  is  something  like 
a  hand  taller  than  either  Naomi,  his  dam,  or 
Nimr,  his  sire.  Here  w,as  an  interesting  instance 
of  inbreeding,  as  Naomi  was  the  grandam  of 
Nimr,  the  sire  of  Khaled.  Whether  this  increase 
in  size  was  due  to  inbreeding  or  to  transplanta- 
tion to  a  different  climate  than  the  desert,  with 
different  and  better  food,  I  am  not  prepared  to 
say.  But  it  is  a  striking  change  for  the  better.  The 
other  horse  I  alluded  to  is  Nimtod,  now,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  in  the  Philippines;  he  is  more  of  a 
pony  or  cob  type  —  something,  indeed,  like  the 
earlier  generations  of  Morgans,  this  type  is  most 
admirable  in  light  harness,  or  to  use  in  the  stud  in 
the  creation  of  polo  ponies.  This  horse  was  sired 
by  Abdul  Hamid  II,  son  of  General  Grant's 
Leopard  out  of  Mary  Sheppard,  an  inbred  Clay 
mare. 

These  Clay- Arabians  are  as  remarkable  for 
their  intelligence  and  docility  as  are  the  Morgans. 
Their  action  is  as  clean  and  elegant  and  their 
bottom  cannot  be  surpassed.  If  this  double  ac- 


THE    CLAY    AND     CLAY-ARABIAN  147 

complishment  of  a  single  private  owner  be  suf- 
fered to  be  wasted  it  will  be  a  pity  indeed,  as  well 
as  a  national  reproach. 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

THE   DENMARK,  OR  KENTUCKY  SADDLE-HORSE 

THE  assessed  value  of  horses  tabulated  by  States 
would  make  it  appear  that  Kentucky  horse-flesh 
was  not  more  precious  than  in  other  parts  of  the 
Union.  And  yet  Kentucky  horses  have  a  fame 
that  is  not  approached  by  those  of  any  other 
state.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  in  a  small  sec- 
tion of  the  state,  none  but  horses  of  high  breeding 
are  reared.  A  few  counties  give  to  the  whole  state 
a  reputation  which,  I  am  afraid,  the  whole  state 
does  not  deserve.  But  in  the  famous  Blue  Grass 
region  the  noblest  horses  of  several  types  and  kinds 
have  been  bred  for  more  than  a  hundred  years. 
It  is  distinctively  the  breeding  place  in  America 
of  the  English  Thoroughbred,  and  comparatively 
few  men  who  have  gone  into  the  reproduction  of 
these  interesting  and  fleet  animals  have  refrained 
sooner  of  later  from  buying  or  renting  farms  in 

148 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  149 

Central  Kentucky  to  carry  on  their  operations. 
So,  also,  with  the  trotters.  Indeed,  it  has  been 
maintained  that  in  this  lime  stone  region,  where 
blue  grass  is  indigenous  and  where  it  was  found  in 
abundance  in  the  park-like  woods  by  the  early 
explorers  that  the  very  bones  of  horses  that  had 
grazed  upon  it  from  infancy  were  harder,  stouter 
and  less  sponge-like  than  those  from  anywhere 
else.  This  much  for  the  virtue  of  the  lime  stone 
nurtured  merits  of  the  blue  grass. 

But  the  people  have  had  much  to  do  with  the 
excellence  of  Kentucky  horses.  They  seem  to 
have  been  by  nature  interested  in  the  breed  of 
horses  from  the  beginning  of  their  settlement 
there.  One  of  the  first  records  of  the  Colonial  era 
is  that  of  a  Kentuckian  who  was  killed  by  an 
Indian  while  training  a  race-horse  on  a  frontier 
race-course.  And  among  the  seven  first  statutes 
enacted  by  the  Colony  when  in  preparation  to 
become  a  state  of  the  Union,  was  one  to  regulate 
the  range  and  improve  the  breed  of  horses.  They 
were  horse  lovers  in  Kentucky  in  the  beginning  as 
they  are  to-day.  And  to-day  there  is  no  crime  that 
is  looked  upon  with  more  contempt  than  to  mis- 


150  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

represent  the  breeding  of  a  horse.  In  Kentucky  a 
gentleman  may  kill  another  gentleman  if  his 
cause  be  just,  and  suffer  no  reproach  save  that  of 
himself;  but  if  he  palter  with  the  pedigree  of  a 
horse  he  trifles  with  his  caste,  and  is  ranked  with 
the  sneak  thieves  and  the  pickpockets  who  take 
their  victims  unaware,  and  achieve  at  once  a 
petty  and  cowardly  advantage.  This  love  of  the 
horse  and  knowledge  of  him  has  gone  on  from 
generation  to  generation  until  it  has  become  a 
part,  and  no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  heritage 
of  every  Kentuckian  who  considers  himself  well 
born. 

Some  twenty  years  ago  a  Kentucky  horse- 
breeder  was  in  Boston,  visiting  a  gentleman  with 
whom  he  had  business.  The  Bostonian,  with  the 
characteristic  hospitality  of  those  Dr.  Holmes 
catalogued  as  of  the  "Brahmin  caste,"  showed 
the  Kentuckian  about.  He  pointed  out  to  him  the 
equestrian  statue  of  Washington  at  the  head  of 
Commonwealth  Avenue.  "There  is  the  Washing- 
ton statue, "  remarked  the  Bostonian.  "  And  what 
was  the  breeding  of  the  horse  ?"  the  Kentuckian 
inquired.  The  horse  to  him  was  almost  every- 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  151 

thing.  And,  later  in  the  day,  when  dinner  was 
over  at  the  hospitable  Bostonian's  home,  and  the 
ladies  and  children  were  retiring,  the  Kentuck- 
ian  leaned  over  to  his  host  and  said,  with  enthu- 
siam:  "By  Gad,  Colonel,  you  have  outbred 
yourself. "  That  was  a  heartfelt  tribute  expressed 
in  the  natural  way  in  which  a  Kentuckian  should 
speak.  No  wonder  that  they  have  fine  horses 
when  they  give  so  much  thought  to  this  subject  of 
breeding. 

But  for  all  this  Kentucky  has  produced  only 
one  distinctive  reproducing  type.  Her  trotters  — 
if  type  they  be  —  belong  as  much  elsewhere  as  to 
Kentucky;  her  runners  are  purely  English.  Her 
Denmarks,  however,  belong  to  Kentucky.  They 
have  been  bred  there  for  more  than  sixty  years, 
and  as  a  distinctive  American  type,  they  are  sec- 
ond only  in  this  country  to  the  Morgans  of  Ver- 
mont. It  is  a  singular  fact  and  not  unworthy  of 
note  that  only  two  states  have  produced  distinct 
American  reproducing  types,  Vermont  and  Ken- 
tucky, and  those  were  the  first  two  states  admit- 
ted to  the  Union  after  the  original  thirteen  got 
ready  to  embrace  other  sisters. 


152  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

It  is  most  curious  how  a  type  happens.  The 
Morgans,  as  has  been  shown  in  a  previous 
chapter,  came  from  a  horse  whose  pedigree  was 
not  even  considered,  and  to  this  day  is  known 
only  by  conjecture  and  not  at  all  by  established 
fact.  He  was  considered  a  good  horse  in  his  day, 
but  it  was  not  until  his  sons  begat  colts  of  excep- 
tional merit  that  it  was  thought  worth  while  to  in- 
quire into  his  origin,  and  that  of  his  antecedents. 
With  Denmark  it  was,  in  a  degree,  different.  Den- 
mark was  a  Thoroughbred,  though  some  who  are 
over-critical,  quarrel  with  the  pedigree  of  his  dam. 
Let  that  be  as  it  may.  In  1839,  when  he  was  foal- 
ed, begat  by  Imported  Hedgeford  out  of  Betsey 
Harrison,  he  was  about  as  good  a  Thoroughbred 
as  the  generality  of  those  we  had  in  America. 
Moreover,  he  was  a  successful  contestant  on  the 
turf  and  a  good  horse  at  four-mile  heats.  These 
disputes  as  to  the  purity  of  the  blood  of  our  early 
horses  are  rather  academic  than  practical.  In  all 
of  the  early  race- horses,  not  purely  English,  there 
were  infusions  of  the  American  basic  blood;  and 
for  that  matter  this  was  the  case  also  in  England, 
where  the  Thoroughbred  at  that  time  was  only 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  153 

newly  evolved  with  the  aid  of  Oriental  blood  from 

the  native  strains.  Here,  however,  is  his  pedigree 

of  Denmark  traced  back  for  several  generations : 

PEDIGREE   OF  DENMARK 

f  „  f  Highflyer 

jSirPeter jPapillon 

[  Miss  Hervey. .  . 

|  Waxy 

I  Daughter 

Benningbrough 
I  Evelina  . . 


Haphazard. 


i 

j|  [Mrs.Barnet 


Orville. 


f  Eclipse 

(Clio 

(  Pot-8-os 

(  Maria 

[  Woodpecker 

I  Heikel 

(  King  Fergus 

I  Daughter 

(  Highflyer 

(  Termagant 


Marchioness 


Director. 


Betsey  Haxall 


[Lurcher J  Dungannon 

I  (  Vertumus 

-,.     „     .  f  Phenomenon 

lMissCogden....{Daughter 

f  Symmes'  Wildair.  j  ^  Fearnaught 
J  I  Jolly  Roger  Mare 

"f  Harris'  Eclipse 
1  Daughter 
f  Sir  Peter  Teazle 
1  Matron 
f  Imp.  Saltram 


[  Eclipse  Mare  .  . . 
Imp.  Sir  Harry. . 


Potomac 


Saltram  Mare. 

(Timoleun's  dam)  I  Daughter 

Imp-Diomed....!^' 

(  Sister  to  Juno 

Fairy. .  j  Pegasus 

y  '  \  Nancy  McCullock 


Saltram  Mare.  . . . 
(Timoleun's  dam) 


f  Imp.  Saltram....  |  EcliPse 
I  ( Virago 

1  Daughter  . .          .  J  Symmes' 
(  Daughtei 


Wildair 


154  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

That  is  pretty  good  breeding,  even  though  the 
ancestors  of  Potomac  might  not  pass  muster 
with  those  who  look  very  closely  back  through 
the  sixteen  generations.  It  may  be  that  this  so- 
called  "cold-streak"  in  Denmark,  through  his 
maternal  great  grandsire,  was  just  what  was 
needed  when  he  was  mated  with  the  Kentucky 
mares  whose  produce  has  given  him  enduring 
fame. 

In  England  the  Thoroughbred  is  thought  to  be 
the  ideal  saddle-horse.  I  confess  that  I  have  had 
the  Thoroughbred  fever  pretty  badly.  But  that  was 
a  long  time  ago ;  and  maybe  that  fever  was  con- 
temporaneous with  Anglo-mania;  indeed,  the 
former  may  have  been  due  to  the  latter.  Personal 
preferences,  however,  have  properly  little  weight 
in  a  judicial  inquiry.  My  whole  effort  in  this  book 
has  been  to  be  entirely  fair.  Personally,  I  care  for 
a  very  few  gaits  in  a  saddle-horse.  I  am  quite  con- 
tent with  the  walk,  the  trot  and  the  gallop.  The 
Thoroughbred  does  all  of  these  with,  to  say  the 
least,  a  reasonable  satisfaction.  But  it  is  unques- 
tionably true  that  a  well-formed,  well-trained, 
well-bred  Denmark  will  go  all  three  of  these  gaits 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  155 

with  better  style  and  more  finish  than  any  Thor- 
oughbred. Besides,  he  can  readily  be  taught  the 
amble  or  pace,  the  running-walk,  or  fox-trot,  and 
the  rack  or  single  foot.  That  some  do  not  care  for 
these  gaits  is  not  in  the  least  a  reproach  upon  the 
capacity  of  the  horse  that  can  do  them  at  the  bid- 
ding of  the  rider.  Moreover,  this  multiplicity  of 
gaits  does  not  in  the  least  detract  from  the  com- 
plete finish  of  each  and  all.  This  fact  has  become 
so  apparent  that  there  is  a  kind  of  hostility  be- 
tween New  York  and  South  and  Western  horse- 
show  standards  as  to  what  a  saddle-horse  shall  be 
like.  A  thoroughly  gaited  horse,  trained  in  all  the 
paces,  would  look  absurd  in  the  eyes  of  those  who 
like  such  horses  if  he  were  shorn  of  his  tail.  It  is 
considered  by  many  who  care  only  for  the  three 
gaits  that  a  saddle-horse  must  have  a  docked 
tail.  A  few  years  ago  a  man  with  a  thoroughly 
gaited  horse  could  show  him,  long  tail  and  all,  in 
the  Southern  and  Western  circuit,  and  then  bring 
him  to  New  York  and  Philadelphia  where  he 
would  tie  up  the  horse's  tail  and  only  exhibit  the 
walk,  trot  and  gallop.  Now,  this  still  may  be  per- 
missible; but,  if  not  absolutely  denied,  it  is  sternly 


156  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

frowned  upon.  So  really  the  question  has  become 
the  highly  absurd  one  of  tail  or  no  tail.  It  is  about 
as  absurd  as  to  deny  the  place  to  an  applicant  for 
a  position  where  knowledge  of  French  was  re- 
quired because  he  also  knew  Italian  and  Spanish. 
The  breeders  and  trainers  of  Denmarks  are  too 
practical,  however,  to  shed  tears  over  such  fool- 
ishness. They  breed  their  horses  the  same  as 
before,  but  they  train  this  one  for  the  East  and 
that  one  for  the  West  and  South.  The  quality 
tells  wherever  they  go,  and  a  horse  in  any  section 
that  takes  a  blue  ribbon  away  from  a  Denmark  is 
more  than  lucky,  he  is  almost  unique. 

For  several  years  past,  however,  at  the  Horse 
Show  in  New  York,  a  gentleman  from  England 
has  come  over  to  judge  the  saddle  classes.  In 
England  he  is,  no  doubt,  as  good  a  judge  of  such 
classes  as  may  be  had,  for  there  the  Thoroughbred 
is  the  one  type,  except  the  cob,  that  is  considered 
as  filling  the  requirements  for  the  saddle.  Before 
the  advent  of  this  gentleman,  a  great  master  in 
training,  exhibiting  and  judging  saddle-horses, 
had  acted  for  a  good  many  years.  He  had,  by  his 
awards,  established  a  standard  that  made  it  al- 


THE    KENTUCKY     SADDLE-HORSE  157 

most  impossible  for  other  horses  to  compete  with 
the  Denmarks.  He  appeared  to  think  —  I  have 
never  spoken  with  him  on  the  subject  —  that 
symmetry,  good  manners,  good  mouth,  style  of 
action  both  in  front  and  behind,  sure-footedness, 
docility,  and  intelligence  were  the  requisites  to  be 
aimed  at.  Now,  these  are  all  characteristics  of  the 
Denmark.  Not  all  are  characteristics  of  the  Thor- 
oughbred. For  instance,  in  the  slow  gaits  a  Thor- 
oughbred, particularly  one  that  has  ever  been  in 
training,  is  not  sure-footed ;  he  travels  too  close  to 
the  ground.  Again,  he  is  not  docile,  as  he  becomes 
very  easily  excited,  and  when  his  blood  is  up, 
wants  to  gallop  at  full  speed.  His  mouth,  owing 
to  this  easily  aroused  excitement,  more  frequently 
than  not,  gets  all  wrong,  and  he  responds  more  to 
force  than  to  that  sympathy  which  makes  a  good 
saddle-horse,  and  his  rider  seem  to  be  one.  His 
style  of  action  is  inferior  to  that  of  the  Denmark 
both  in  front  and  behind  and,  as  a  general  thing, 
he  lacks  the  symmetry  of  substance  which  is  really 
the  most  remarkable  thing  about  a  Denmark.  It  is 
surely  a  pity  that  there  should  be  in  our  show 
rings  this  confusion  as  to  standards.  The  Thor- 


158  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

oughb red  type  as  a  saddle-horse  standard  does 
not  obtain  away  from  New  York.  In  Philadelphia, 
in  Boston,  in  Chicago  and  all  over  the  South  and 
West,  the  Denmark  is  still  the  saddle-horse  par 
excellence,  as  he  deserves  to  be.  A  friend  of  mine*4 
in  upholding  the  New  York  authorities  for  get- 
ting an  English  judge  for  American  saddle-horses, 
says  that  the  substitution  was  wise,  because  the 
Kentucky  horses  hammer  themselves  all  to 
pieces  on  the  hard  roads  in  the  parks  of  the  East. 
If  the  park  roads  in  the  East  are  harder  than  the 
Kentucky  turnpikes,  I  have  yet  to  see  them.  His 
idea  seemed  to  be  that  every  Kentucky  horse  was 
sure  to  rack.  But  that  is  not  so  at 'all.  He  racks 
when  he  is  taught,  and  he  is  taught  so  easily  that 
he  acquires  the  gait  by  what  might  be  called  sec- 
ond nature;  but  the  Denmark  can  be  turned  out 
whenever  desired  to  go  only  the  three  gaits  — 
walk,  trot,  and  canter  —  and  he  does  these  with  a 
finish  that  the  Thoroughbred  cannot  approach. 

But  these  other  easily  acquired  Kentucky  gaits 
are  not  to  be  despised.  The  running- walk  is  not 
hard  upon  the  horse,  and  it  is  the  easiest  of  all  on 
the  rider.  When  men  on  business,  or  soldiers  on  a 


§1 


= 


1  1 

o 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  159 

march  both  have  to  go  great  distances  in  the  sad- 
dle, the  running- walk  is  about  as  great  an  excel- 
lence as  a  horse  can  be  endowed  with.  It  came 
into  being  in  this  country  when  most  journeys 
were  made  on  horseback.  In  those  days,  when 
about  to  take  the  long  road  from  Lexington  to 
Washington  and  Philadelphia,  a  man  would  have 
been  considered  lacking  in  intelligence  who  ex- 
pressed contempt  for  either  the  amble  or  the  fox- 
trot. And  when  Morgan's  men,  during  the  Civil 
War,  were  making  those  wonderful  raids  —  now 
here,  now  there,  and  the  next  day  out  of  sight  — 
they  were  generally  mounted  on  these  Kentucky- 
bred  horses  —  not  Thoroughbreds,  but  Den- 
marks  and  others  of  the  saddle-class  type,  the 
one  type  that  particularly  belongs  to  Kentucky, 
and  one  of  the  very  few  types  that  we  can  call 
American. 

Long  before  Denmark  came  to  Kentucky  — 
fifty  years  and  more  —  there  had  been  good 
saddle-horses  there.  There  was  an  urgent  need 
for  them,  and  men  of  enterprise  usually  get  what 
they  need.  They  had  been  brought  from  Virginia 
by  the  early  settlers,  they  had  come  from  Canada 


160  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

and  from  Vermont.  They  were  excellent  horses 
for  the  purposes  of  the  time,  but  they  lacked  the 
fine  finish  that  came  to  them  from  Denmark  and 
other  Thoroughbred  crosses  that  were  made  about 
his  time.  It  was  not  appreciated  to  the  full  what 
an  excellent  cross  Denmark  made  on  those  old 
time  mares  until  after  his  death,  and  the  appear- 
ance of  his  sons  as  sires  —  particularly  Gaines's 
Denmark.  From  this  latter  horse  the  best  saddle- 
horses  that  Kentucky  has  produced  have  de- 
scended and,  in  many  instances,  they  breed  back 
to  him  two,  three  and  four  times.  To  my  mind, 
here  is  the  strongest  proof  that  the  Denmark  is  a 
fixed  reproducing  type.  Inbreeding  is  fatal  among 
mongrels  of  any  sort;  but  where  the  type  is  fixed 
it  may  be  done  with  most  excellent  results  and 
strictly,  too,  according  to  the  rule  of  "  like  beget- 
ting like. " 

Here  is  another  peculiarity  of  the  Denmark. 
His  excellence  as  a  driving  horse  is  only  exceeded 
by  his  virtues  under  the  saddle.  I  am  well  aware 
that  men  of  fortune,  who  can  keep  as  many  horses 
in  their  stables  as  they  choose,  rather  scoff  at 
the  "combination  horse. "  All  right  for  them.  All 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  16l 

of  us,  however,  are  not  so  fortunately  situated. 
When  a  man  whose  means  only  enable  him  to 
keep  a  few  horses  —  or  even  one  horse  —  and  he 
wants  both  to  ride  and  drive,  the  "combination 
horse"  is  the  only  animal  that  will  enable  him  to 
go  how  and  when  he  chooses.  The  Denmarks 
make  splendid  combination  horses.  They  trot  in 
harness  with  quite  reasonable  speed  and  very 
good  action,  and  the  road  is  seldom  too  long  for 
them.  My  personal  experience  has  not  shown  me 
that  this  change  from  saddle  to  harness  worked 
any  great  harm.  I  once  had  a  Denmark  that  won 
first  prizes  at  the  same  show  in  the  rings  for  sad- 
dle-horses, for  combination  horses  and  for  road- 
sters; all  these  winnings  in  two  days.  It  seems 
only  reasonable  that  horses  with  the  activity,  the 
adaptability,  and  the  intelligence  to  acquire  the 
various  gaits  that  are  within  a  Denmark's  range 
would  .not  necessarily  be  injured  by  driving  in 
harness.  At  any  rate,  a  man  who  has  only  a  small 
stable  can  get  more  kinds  of  fun  out  of  a  Den- 
mark than  out  of  any  other  type  of  horse. 

This  type  of  horse  is  bred  in  five  or  six  coun- 
ties grouped  about  Lexington.  There  are  several 


162    -  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

large  breeders,  but  pretty  nearly  every  farmer  has 
a  saddle  mare  or  two  that  are  regularly  bred.  But 
the  supply  is  not  up  to  the  demand.  The  dealers 
and  trainers  have  their  eyes  open  all  the  time  for 
promising  individuals  to  train  for  the  show  rings, 
and  supply  to  wealthy  customers  in  various  parts 
of  the  country.  They  get  first  choice  because  they 
are  willing,  when  they  come  across  a  particularly 
fine  specimen,  to  take  it  even  as  a  yearling.  As 
these  animals  are  usually  not  salable  until  four 
years  old,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  disposal  of  the 
yearling  is  an  attractive  thing  for  the  breeder  and 
risky  for  the  dealer.  But  there  are  still  a  good 
many  of  them  needed  for  use  at  home,  as  the 
young  Blue  Grass  Kentuckian  must  have  his  sad- 
dler so  that  he  can  range  the  country-side  at  will. 
Most  men,  unacquainted  with  the  easy  gaits  of  a 
Kentucky  saddle-horse,  as  used  in  his  native 
counties,  would  think  it  rather  strange  to  go 
courting  on  horseback,  and  arrive  at  one's  des- 
tination hot  and  mussed  up.  But  these  easily 
gaited  horses  do  not  muss  one  up  any  more  than 
a  hansom  cab  does.  This  easiness  of  gait  reminds 
me  of  another  use  for  which  they  are  invaluable. 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  163 

The  planters  in  the  South,  as  a  general  thing,  go 
about  their  places  on  horseback,  also  visiting  the 
village  and  their  neighbors  in  the  same  way.  In 
that  generally  warm  climate  a  Thoroughbred  or 
trotting  horse  would  get  the  rider  so  warm  that  a 
change  of  clothes  would  be  necessary;  but  these 
Southern  gentlemen  do  not  find  such  a  need.  In- 
deed, I  have  been  told  that  one  accustomed  to  the 
saddle  and  the  climate  can  attend  to  business  and 
social  duties,  plus  two  or  three  mint  juleps,  with- 
out any  great  inconvenience. 

When  I  was  asked  last  year  by  the  Civil  Gov- 
ernment of  the  Philippines  to  select  some  mares 
and  stallions  for  transportation  there  for  breeding 
and  the  improvement  of  the  ponies  in  the  Islands, 
I  bought  as  many  Denmark  mares  as  the  con- 
ditions of  my  commission  permitted.  As  my  time 
was  limited  I  had  to  scour  several  counties  very 
thoroughly.  The  gentlemen  I  first  consulted  were 
rather  discouraging,  but  I  got  in  a  few  weeks  as 
fine  a  lot  as  ever  left  Kentucky,  and  the  picture 
that  is  in  this  book  shows  a  group  of  them 
at  pasture  just  before  they  were  started  on 
their  long  journey  to  the  other  side  of  the  world, 


164  HE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

where  they  arrived,  I  am  glad  to  say,  with  a  loss 
of  only  two  per  cent.  It  was  more  difficult  to  find 
Denmark  stallions.  The  scarcity  of  these  is  due  to 
the  efforts  of  the  dealers  and  trainers  to  get  males 
for  their  customers.  So  many  of  the  most  prom- 
ising are  sold  as  yearlings  and  gelded.  The  great- 
est stallions  of  the  day  are,  I  should  judge,  Mont- 
gomery Chief,  belonging  to  the  Ball  Brothers, 
Highland  Denmark,  belonging  to  the  Gay 
Brothers,  and  Forest  Denmark,  belonging  to 
Colonel  Woodford.  These  are  all  closely-inbred 
Denmarks,  and  are  most  successful  as  sires,  their 
progeny  winning  blue  ribbons  wherever  shown. 

These  horses  have  found  their  way  into  Ten- 
nessee, Illinois,  and  Missouri,  where  the  stock  is 
most  highly  esteemed;  but  they  flourish  most  in 
Kentucky.  I  have  heard  army  officers  say  that  in 
the  hard  riding  days,  when  the  Indian  was  still  a 
frontier  menace,  that  a  troop  of  cavalry  mounted 
on  horses  from  Kentucky  would  find  their 
horses  in  first-class  condition  when  other  troops 
on  horses  say  from  Iowa,  Missouri,  or  Illinois 
would  be  completely  worn  out  and  unable  to  con- 
tinue. These  horses  are  singularly  free  from 


THE    KENTUCKY    SADDLE-HORSE  165 

blemishes.  I  noticed  this  particularly  when  mak- 
ing the  Philippine  purchases  just  alluded  to.  Here 
every  horse  had  to  be  absolutely  sound,  or,  as 
they  say  in  Kentucky,  "without  a  pimple."  The 
small  percentage  of  rejection  for  unsoundness 
really  surprised  me.  This  was  testimony  to  the 
careful  selection  in  breeding  that  is  practised 
there.  One  other  word  as  to  this  experience. 
When  a  breeder  was  asked  whether  his  offering 
were  broken  or  trained,  he  either  looked  bewil- 
dered or  treated  the  question  as  a  joke.  This  was 
because  all  of  them  are  perfectly  broken  and,  as  a 
mere  matter  of  course,  both  to  saddle  and 
harness. 

The  prevailing  size  of  the  Denmarks,  I  should 
say,  is  15.2,  the  weight  1050  pounds.  In  color 
they  are  usually  bays  or  chestnuts,  though  there 
are  browns,  blacks  and  grays.  I  never  saw  a  dun; 
but  I  have  seen  a  few  roans.  The  usual  practice 
is  to  handle  them  at  two  years  old,  train  them 
gently  at  three,  and  give  them  a  complete  edu- 
cation at  four. 

The  American  Saddle  Horse  Breeders'  Asso- 
ciation keeps  and  publishes  a  register  affirming 


166  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

that  the  followihg  sires  are  the  founders  of  the 
type: 

Denmark  (Thoroughbred),  by  Imp.  Hedgeford. 

John  Dillard,  by  Indian  Chief  (Canadian). 

Tom  Hal  (Imported  from  Canada). 

CabelFs  Lexington,  by  Gist's  Black  Hawk  (Morgan). 

Coleman's  Eureka  (Thoroughbred  and  Morgan). 

Van  Meter's  Waxy  (Thoroughbred). 

Stump  the  Dealer  (Thoroughbred). 

Peter's  Halcorn. 

Davy  Crockett. 

Pat  Cleburne,  by  Benton's  Gray  Diomed. 

This  wide  inclusion  is  hospitable  and  prob- 
ably just,  for  the  blood  of  all  these  horses  com- 
mingling with  the  old  stock  has  made  the  Ken- 
tucky saddle-horses  what  they  are,  but  among 
them  all  the  Denmarks  are  pre-eminent.  That 
they  should  be  a  reproducing  type  is,  no  doubt, 
due  to  the  Oriental  blood  in  the  Thoroughbreds 
and  the  fresh  infusions  that  came  with  the  Jef- 
ferson Barbs,  Keene  Richards's  Arabs  and  from 
other  more  recent  sources. 


s? 


CHAPTER  NINE 

THE    GOVERNMENT    AS    A    BREEDER 

THE  United  States  as  a  government  has  never 
until  now  conducted  any  horse-breeding  experi- 
ments. Army  officers  have  frequently  tried  to  in- 
duce the  War  Department  to  start  a  breeding  es- 
tablishment so  that  remounts  of  a  proper  kind 
could  be  supplied  to  the  cavalry.  But  the  idea  has 
never  appealed  to  Congress,  and  in  this  particu- 
lar direction  nothing  has  been  done.  Dr.  D.  E. 
Salmon,  the  accomplished  chief  of  the  Bureau  of 
Animal  Industry  of  the  Agricultural  Department, 
has  inserted  what  may  be  the  "  entering- wedge  " 
for  at  the  Colorado  Agricultural  Experiment  Sta- 
tion a  few  mares  and  stallions  have  been  assem- 
bled, and  an  effort  will  be  made  to  breed  a  type  of 
carriage  horses,  a  type  badly  needed.  Of  this  ex- 
periment Dr.  Salmon  says: 

"  In  the  countries  of  the  world  where  horse 

167 


168  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

breeding  has  been  encouraged  by  government  as- 
sistance the  foundation  has  been  native  stock, 
and  the  key  to  successful  work  has  been  selection 
according  to  a  certain  type.  Furthermore,  with  all 
due  respect  to  Godolphin  Arabian,  the  Darley 
Arabian  and  their  contemporaries,  the  great  fac- 
tor in  developing  the  Thoroughbred  horse  was  the 
method  of  the  English  breeder,  and  more  credit 
is  due  to  native  English  stock  and  to  environment 
than  has  generally  been  acknowledged.  The  Thor- 
oughbred has  been  the  great  leavening  power  in 
developing  English  breeds  of  light  horses;  the 
trotter  may  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  horse 
stock  of  America. 

"The  trotter  is  found  throughout  the  country 
wherever  horses  are  raised,  and  any  improve- 
ment in  this  breed  affects  in  time  the  entire  horse 
industry.  The  light  harness  classes  can  be  sup- 
plied from  this  source,  and  there  is  no  more  effec- 
tive way  to  provide  a  supply  of  suitable  cavalry 
horses  for  the  United  States  army  than  by  show, 
ing  how  the  native  horse  may  be  improved. 

"That  the  trotter  has  faults  no  one  will  deny, 
and  that  the  speed  idea  has  been  responsible  for 


THE  GOVERNMENT  AS  A  BREEDER   169 

many  of  these  faults  and  has  caused  many  a  man 
to  become  bankrupt  are  equally  certain.  If  a 
horse  can  trot  2.10  or  better  it  is  reasonably  cer- 
tain that  he  will  make  money  for  his  owner,  and 
it  matters  not  how  homely  or  unsound  he'may  be; 
but  if  the  horse  has  bad  looks  and  unsoundness, 
and  also  lacks  speed,  he  will  be  unprofitable  on 
the  track,  and  can  not  be  sold  at  a  profitable 
price  on  the  market,  while,  if  used  in  the  stud, 
his  undesirable  qualities  are  perpetuated.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  horse  has  a  moderate  speed,  but 
is  sound,  handsome  and  stylish,  with  a  shapely 
head  and  neck,  a  straight,  strong  back,  straight 
croup,  muscular  quarters  and  stifles,  well-set 
legs,  possesses  good  all-round  true  action  and  has 
abundant  endurance,  he  is  almost  certainly  a 
profitable  investment.  This  is  the  kind  of  light 
horse  which  the  market  wants  and  will  pay  for.  If 
of  the  roadster  type,  he  sells  well  as  a  driver;  if 
more  on  the  heavy  harness  order,  as  a  carriage 
horse. 

"The  occurrence  of  trotting  bred  horses  of  the 
finest  conformation  is  by  no  means  uncommon ;  it 
is  so  frequent,  indeed,  that  these  animals  supply 


170  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

not  only  the  demand  for  roadsters,  but  the  prin- 
cipal part  of  the  fine  city  trade  in  carriage  horses, 
and  are  conspicuous  winners  at  the  horse  shows. 
The  demand  for  such  horses  has  been  so  keen 
that  dealers  have  resorted  to  the  pernicious  prac- 
tice of  buying  mature  stallions,  many  of  them 
valuable  breeders,  and  castrating  them  to  be  sold 
later  as  carriage  horses.  The  famous  Lord  Bril- 
liant, three  times  winner  of  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
gig  cup  at  Madison  Square  Garden,  is  a  notable 
instance  of  this  practice ;  Lonzie,  a  noted  Chicago 
show  horse,  is  another,  and  the  horse  purchased 
for  the  department  experiments  (Carmon)  nar- 
rowly escaped  the  same  fate.  This  practice  can 
not  be  too  strongly  condemned.  There  is  reason 
to  believe  that  if  these  stallions  were  used  as  the 
nucleus  of  a  breed  the  type  would  in  time  become 
fixed  and  their  blood  be  saved  to  the  country. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  steps  are  not  taken  to 
mould  the  blood  of  these  horses  into  one  breed, 
and  preserve  the  blood  lines  which  produce  them, 
an  irreparable  loss  to  the  industry  will  result.  The 
first  step  should  be  to  select  foundation  stock 
strictly  according  to  type;  the  next  to  study  the 


THE  GOVERNMENT  AS  A  BREEDER   171 

lines  of  breeding  which  produce  these  horses.  To 
a  certain  extent  they  are  accidents  of  breeding, 
but  there  is  little  doubt  that  certain  families  show 
a  greater  tendency  in  this  direction  than  others. 
For  example,  the  descendants  of  Alexander's  Ab- 
dallah,  Harrison  Chief,  the  Morgans  and  the 
Clay  family  have  been  more  or  less  notable  in  this 
respect.  Further,  certain  sires  are  known  to  pro- 
duce handsome  and  marketable  horses  with 
regularity. 

"In  view  of  these  facts,  the  department  decid- 
ed to  undertake  the  development  of  a  breed  of 
carriage  horses  on  an  American  foundation  as  an 
interesting  and  important  problem  for  solution.  If 
successful  it  will  show  that  we  can  develop  our 
own  breeding  stock  of  horses  in  this  country;  it 
will  make  light  horse  breeding  less  a  lottery  than 
it  is  at  present,  and  will  at  the  same  time  provide 
breeding  animals  which  can  be  used  profitably  on 
the  lighter  horses  of  the  country. 

"After  a  thorough  search  the  department  has 
purchased  as  foundation  stock  eighteen  mares 
and  one  stallion.  In  addition,  it  can  command 
the  services  of  additional  stallions  if  desired.  The 


172  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

instructions  of  the  purchasing  board  allowed  con- 
siderable latitude,  but  it  was  required  to  select 
strictly  according  to  type.  Hereditary  unsound  - 
ness  was  regarded  as  a  disqualification.  Pedigree 
was  not  considered,  so  far  as  registration  was 
concerned,  but  the  board  required  evidence  to  be 
submitted  showing  that  the  animals  purchased 
were  from  parents  and  ancestors  of  like  type, 
thus  insuring  blood  lines  that  would  breed  rea- 
sonably true.  Speed,  while  not  ignored,  was  not 
made  an  essential.  Life,  spirit,  and  energy,  with 
moderate  speed,  were  considered,  and,  while  con- 
formation was  not  sacrificed  to  speed,  speed  with 
conformation  and  good  action  was  regarded  as  an 
advantage. 

"The  type  for  mares  was  one  standing  about 
15.3  hands,  weighing  1100  to  1150  pounds,  bay, 
brown  or  chestnut  in  color,  with  stylish  head  and 
neck,  full  made  body,  deep  ribs,  straight  back, 
strong  loin,  straight,  full  croup,  muscular  fore- 
arms, quarters  and  lower  thighs;  good  all-round 
was  insisted  upon.  Any  tendency  to  pace  or  mix 
gaits  was  regarded  as  grounds  for  disqualifica- 
tion. In  some  cases  mares  of  more  than  15.3 


THE  GOVERNMENT  AS  A  BREEDER   173 

hands  were  purchased  and  in  others  they  were 
less  than  this.  All,  however,  conformed  closely  to 
type.  Some  of  the  mares  are  in  foal;  the  rest  will 
be  bred  this  spring. 

"The  ancestors  of  six  mares  purchased  in 
Wyoming  have  been  bred  for  five  or  six  genera- 
tions in  that  state,  the  band  having  been  started 
by  means  of  an  importation  of  horses  from  the 
Central  West  which  was  largely  Morgan  stock. 
On  this  stock  Thoroughbred  and  Standard  sires 
have  been  used,  and  the  herd  has  been  developed 
more  to  produce  a  horse  suitable  for  carriage  pur- 
poses than  one  which  had  speed  characteristics. 
Some  of  the  six  have  been  exhibited  at  the  New 
York  Horse  Show,  and  the  owner  of  the  ranch 
maintains  a  stable  near  New  York  City,  where  he 
sends  his  surplus  from  year  to  year  to  be  finished 
for  the  fine  city  trade. 

"  The  search  for  a  stallion  to  head  the  stud  was 
the  most  difficult  of  all.  An  almost  unlimited 
number  of  trotting  horses  suitable  to  get  good 
carriage  horses  were  recommended  to  the  depart- 
ment, but  on  investigation  it  would  be  found  that 
they  were  deficient  in  some  respect  and  could  not 


174  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

be  considered.  A  horse  was  finally  selected 
which  was  among  the  first  suggested  —  Car- 
mon  32907,  American  Trotting  Horse  Register, 
16  hands,  weighing  1200  pounds  in  fair  con- 
dition, bay  with  black  points  and  no  white 
markings,  bred  by  Norman  J.  Coleman,  of  St. 
Louis. 

"  The  points  of  Cannon's  conformation  which 
deserve  special  mention  are  his  head  and  neck 
and  hind  quarters.  His  forehead  is  broad  and 
full,  with  a  straight  nose  and  face;  full,  expres- 
sive eyes  and  well-carried  ears.  The  neck  is 
clean,  muscular,  and  well  arched.  In  the  hind 
quarters  special  attention  should  be  directed 
to  the  straight,  broad  croup  and  the  mus- 
cular quarters  and  lower  thighs.  The  horse  has 
an  abundance  of  bone  and  substance,  but  am- 
ple quality  at  the  same  time.  His  action  is  ex- 
cellent. 

"A  study  of  Carmon's  pedigree  shows  that  it  is 
not  a  particularly  fashionable  one  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  man  who  is  breeding  solely  for 
speed.  This  is  a  pedigree  from  which  one  might 
expect  a  horse  of  excellent  conformation.  Robert 


THE  GOVERNMENT  AS  A  BREEDER   175 

McGregor,  for  example,  was  a  horse  with  espe- 
cially well-developed  hind  quarters  and  this  char- 
acteristic is  seen  in  his  sons  and  grandsons,  as 
shown  by  Cresceus  and  Carmon.  Abdallah  XV 
was  a  horse  with  a  particularly  attractive  head 
and  neck.  The  frequency  with  which  the  Abdal- 
lah cross  appears  in  Cannon's  pedigree  and 
the  presence  of  Morgan,  Mambrino  Chief  and 
Clay  blood  readily  explains  where  this  horse 
gets  his  handsome  head  and  neck  and  his 
full  quarters  and  stifles.  These  families  have 
produced  some  of  our  handsomest  horses.  Their 
blood  makes  up  nineteen-sixty-fourths  of  Car- 
mon's  pedigree. 

"The  small  percentage  of  pacing  blood  is 
worthy  of  particular  notice.  Further,  the  promi- 
nent trotting  sires  in  it  have  produced  more  trot- 
ters than  pacers,  and  Robert  McGregor,  Abdal- 
lah XV,  and  Ethan  Allen  are  noteworthy  for  the 
small  number  of  pacers  sired  by  them  or  pro- 
duced by  their  sons  and  daughters.  This  is  so 
small  that  they  may  be  regarded  strictly  as 
sires  of  trotters.  Abdallah  XV  and  Ethan 
Allen  sired  no  pacers,  and  of  the  immediate 


176  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

get  of  Robert  McGregor  less  than  ten  per  cent 
are  pacers."* 

I  need  not  explain  to  readers  of  this  book  that 
I  do  not  entirely  agree  with  Dr.  Salmon  in  his 
views  of  the  American  trotting  horse.  But  in  the 
main  I  do  agree  with  him  in  the  selection  of  his 

*U.  S.  DEPARTMENT  OF  AGRICULTURE 

BUREAU  OF  ANIMAL  INDUSTRY 

LOCAL  OFFICE 

John  Gilmer  Speed,  FORT  COLLINS,  COLO.,  June  12,  1905. 

New  York,  N.  Y. 

DEAR  SIR: — Your  favor  of  May  24  has  been  referred  to  me  for  reply. 
Will  say  that  we  now  have  19  brood  mares  and  a  stallion  in  our  breeding 
stud  here  and  as  you  probably  have  learned,  our  object  is  to  establish  a 
type  of  American  carriage  horses  eventually.  We  will  found  a  stud  book 
for  this  type  of  horses  in  America  and  we  hope  to  so  foster  and  develop 
this  type  of  horses  in  America  as  to  make  them  par  excellence  as  a  heavy 
harness  horse.  The  mares  that  we  have  secured  range  in  weight  fom  1050 
to  upwards  of  1280  pounds.  They  are  from  15.2  to  16.1  hands  in  height 
and  are  without  exception  high  headed  with  superb  action,  of  fine  quality 
and  while  not  noted  for  speed,  can  trot  a  mile  in  approximately  three  min- 
utes and  do  it  in  a  wonderfully  easy  and  graceful  manner,  showing  great 
style  and  finish.  They  are  all  bred  from  the  American  trotter  foundation, 
and  as  far  as  possible  of  Morgan  blood.  We  were  careful  to  secure  nothing 
but  straight  trotting  bred  stock,  as  we  wish  to  eradicate  the  pacing  charac- 
teristic from  our  horses.  As  you  are  aware,  the  Government  and  the  Colo- 
rado Agricultural  College  are  co-operating  in  this  work.  The  Government 
is  furnishing  part  of  the  funds  and  the  College  has  taken  charge  of  and  is 
directing  the  work. 

Trusting  that  this  information  is  satisfactory,  I  am, 
Yours  very  truly, 

W.  L.  CARLYLE. 

Expert  in  charge. 


THE  GOVERNMENT  AS  A  BREEDER   177 

mares.  The  stallion  used  to  be  known  in  the 
horse-show  rings  as  Lawson's  Glorious  Thunder 
Cloud.  He  never  struck  me  as  anything  at  all  out 
of  the  common  and  I  am  astonished  at  his  selec- 
tion. He  was  a  good  wheeler  in  a  four-in-hand, 
but  that  was  all.  In  single  harness  he  never  won  in 
any  ordinary  class  at  any  important  show.  He 
seemed  to  me  to  lack  quality  and  to  be  lacking  in 
many  of  the  things  for  which  Dr.  Salmon  gives 
him  praise.  I  trust,  however,  he  will  prove  a  bet- 
ter sire  than  he  was  a  show  horse,  for  the  need  for 
carriage  horses  is  great;  then  it  would  be  a  great 
pity  for  this  first  official  experiment  to  turn  out 
badly.  It  will  be  watched  with  peculiar  interest. 
But  I  wish  Dr.  Salmon  had  selected  as  his  stallion 
a  horse  that  was  in  blood  and  conformation  simi- 
lar to  Clay-Kismet. 


CHAPTER  TEN 

FOREIGN    HORSES    OF    VARIOUS    KINDS 

FOR  draught  purposes  there  have  been  a  great 
many  foreign  horses  brought  here,  and  they  have 
served  an  excellent  purpose.  I  suspect  indeed 
that  if  we  had  a  record  of  the  Percherons,  Clydes- 
dales, and  Shire  horse  that  have  been  brought  into 
America  for  the  purpose  of  breeding  heavy  horses 
for  trucking,  that  the  number  would  exceed  the 
Thoroughbreds  that  have  been  im  orted  for  the 
improvement  of  that  special  type.  We  had  no 
heavy  horses  of  our  own,  and  as  there  was  a  con- 
stant demand  for  draught  horses  it  was  inevitable 
that  breeders  should  go  for  stock  where  that 
stock  had  been  brought  to  the  highest  perfection. 
To  us  it  seemed  that  the  French  horses,  the  Per- 
cherons,* were  best  adapted  for  our  use.  And 

*Mr.  Walters  of  Baltimore,  began  importing  Percherons  to  America 
in  1866  and  kept  it  up  for  twenty  years.    He  translated  the  work  of 

178 


FOREIGN     HORSES    OF    VARIOUS    KINDS    179 

though  many  have  been  brought  here,  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  generality  of  Americans  know  the 
pure  bred  Percherons.  But  all  of  us  are  familiar 
with  Rosa  Bonheur's  "Horse  Fair."  The  models 
of  the  horses  in  this  stirring  and  beautiful  picture 
were  Percherons,  and  nearly  all  of  them  stallions. 
The  French,  and  other  Latins  besides,  have  a 
fondness  for  using  stallions  in  ordinary  work,  and 
any  day  in  Paris  a  visitor  may  see  a  long  string  of 
Percheron  stallions  drawing  a  heavy  load  as  pla- 
cidly as  geldings  would  do  it.  There  is  no  reason 
why  stallions  should  not  be  used  more  generally 
in  this  country.  The  prejudice  against  their  use 
as  saddle-  and  harness-horses  no  doubt  arose  when 
the  business  of  a  greater  part  of  the  country  was 
transacted  by  travelers  who  needed  to  hitch  their 
horses  where  other  horses  were  also  tethered.  But 
in  work  where  a  groom  or  driver  is  always  in 
charge  of  a  horse  the  stallion  may  be  used  with 
much  advantage  to  himself  and  satisfaction  to  his 
owner. 


M.  du  Hays  on  the  Percheron  and  illustrated  it  with  photographs  of 
horses  and  mares  of  his  own  importation.  It  is  one  of  the  handsomest 
horse  books  ever  published. 


180  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

The  basic  blood  of  these  Percherons  is  Arab 
and  Barb  mixed  with  the  blood  of  those  heavy 
Norman  horses  that  were  used  by  the  heavily- 
armed  knights  in  the  time  when  the  lance,  sword, 
and  crossbow  took  the  place  in  war  now  monop- 
olized entirely  by  rifles,  balls  and  powder  or  other 
explosives.  After  securing  the  type  the  French 
have  been  so  zealously  aware  of  its  value  that 
they  keep  agents  in  Arabia  always  looking  out  for 
animals  suitable  to  start  a  new  and  parellel  snp- 
ply  of  this  basic  blood.  These  same  agents  are 
also  on  the  lookout  for  horses  to  be  used  in  the 
breeding  of  army  horses.  Few  of  the  Percherons 
that  are  brought  over  here  are  used  in  actual 
work,  but  are  kept  on  the  breeding  farms  in  Ohio, 
Illinois,  and  other  places  for  the  production  of 
"graded  draught  horses,"  horses  not  quite  so 
heavy  as  the  Percheron,  but  heavier  than  any 
draught  horses  we  previously  had  of  our  own 
breeding.  The  Percheron  stallions  are  mated 
with  heavy  American  mares  and  with  "graded" 
mares,  and  the  produce  sent  to  the  great  cities 
where  the  animals  fetch  highly  satisfactory 
prices.  Great  care  has  to  be  exercised  in  making 


FOREIGN    HORSES    OF    VARIOUS    KINDS    181 

the  cross  between  a  Percheron  and  an  American 
that  the  contrast  shall  not  be  too  great  between 
the  members  of  the  union.  When  it  is  too  great 
the  consequences  are  disastrous,  and  result  in  a 
misshapen  beast  with  unrelated  characteristics 
of  each  parent.  This  shows  that  the  blood  of  the 
union  has  not  blended  harmoniously.  But  the 
men  who  are  in  the  business  of  producing 
"graded  draught  horses"  appear  to  know  that 
business  well  as  the  horses  sold  are  handsome, 
strong,  and  active,  and  well  adapted  for  the 
work  for  which  they  were  created. 

This  is  a  business  pretty  sure  to  decrease  rather 
rapidly.  These  graded  horses  are  not  the  ideal 
farm  horse,  although  on  a  large  farm  where  there 
is  a  deal  of  hauling,  they  serve  a  very  useful  pur- 
pose. But  in  plowing  or  in  other  work  over  soft 
ground  they  are  too  heavy.  The  city  is  the  place 
for  these  horses.  And  year  by  year  the  heavy  haul- 
ing will  more  and  more  be  done  by  auto-cars.  The 
auto-car  for  trucking  is  at  present  probably  the 
most  satisfactory  achievement  of  the  designers  of 
horseless  vehicles.  When  it  is  satisfactorily  dem- 
onstrated that  this  mode  of  transferring  freight, 


182  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

building  material,  and  so  on,  is  the  cheapest  way, 
then  draught  horses  will  be  less  and  less  in  de- 
mand, and  the  French  will  lose  one  of  their  most 
profitable  markets  for  her  large,  heavy,  and  sym- 
metrical horses.  Still  that  may  be  a  many  years 
off,  and  if  I  were  Dr.  Hartman  or  Messrs.  Dun- 
ham I  should  not  just  yet  sacrifice  my  Percherons 
to  any  save  the  highest  bidder. 

Before  the  era  of  the  draught  horse  from 
France,  those  from  England  had  a  certain 
amount  of  popularity.  That  has  long  since  passed 
away,  and  the  Shires  and  Clydesdales  in  the 
United  States  are  not  proportionally  so  numerous 
as  formerly.  But  they  keep  their  popularity  in 
Canada,  where  probably  the  farmers,  being 
chiefly  Britons,  understand  them  better.  That 
they  should  have  been  supplanted  by  the  Perche- 
ron  in  the  United  States  is  no  doubt  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  Oriental  blood  in  the  French  horse 
makes  that  blood  more  assimilative  with  other 
strains.  The  French  coach  horse  is  brought  over 
here  to  an  extent  for  experimental  use,  and  the 
Cleveland  Bays  formerly  were  brought  quite  fre- 
quently. Both,  no  doubt,  have  had  temporary  in- 


FOREIGN     HORSES     OF    VARIOUS    KINDS    183 

fluences  on  the  American  stock  in  the  localities 
where  these  horses  were  in  the  stud,  but  I  know  of 
no  type  that  has  been  influenced  by  them  to  any 
great  extent. 

The  Orlof  trotting  horse  of  Russia  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  horses  in  Europe,  and  was 
created  by  Count  Alexis  Orlof-Tchestmensky, 
who  began  his  work  during  the  reign  of  Peter  III, 
in  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  As  there 
has  been  an  effort  to  make  this  type  popular  in 
America,  it  may  be  interesting  to  record  how 
Count  Orlof  went  about  his  work  to  secure  a  re- 
producing type  of  animals  that  resemble  each 
other  as  much  as  the  puppies  in  a  litter  of  fox  ter- 
riers. In  1775  he  imported  from  Arabia  a  stallion 
named  Smetanka,  and  bred  this  horse  to  a  Dan- 
ish mare.  The  produce  was  Polkan  who  sired  in 
1784  Barrs  out  of  a  Dutch  mare.  Barrs  is  looked 
upon  as  the  founder  of  the  Orlof  type.  Barrs  sired 
Lubeznoy  out  of  a  mare  that  was  sired  by  an 
Arab  out  of  a  Mecklenberg  mare;  Barrs  also  sired 
Dobroy  out  of  a  Thoroughbred  English  mare; 
also  Lebed  out  of  a  mare  by  Felkerzamchek  out 
of  a  Mecklenberg  mare,  Felkerzamchek  being  by 


184  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

Smetanka  out  of  a  Thoroughbred  English  mare. 
Now  all  the  Orlofs  must  descend  from  Smetanka 
and  Barrs  through  the  three  stallions  named. 
This  mixture  was  crossed  and  recrossed  until  it 
became  homogeneous,  and  so  the  Russian  noble 
had  created  a  type. 

In  1772  he  had  in  his  stud  the  following  horses : 

Arab 12  stallions  and  10  mares 

Persian 3  "  "      2  " 

English 20  "  "    32  " 

Dutch 1  "  "      8  " 

Mecklenberg 1  "  "5  " 

Danish 1  "  "3  " 

Miscellaneous 9  "  "    17  " 

He  developed  his  type  before  his  death  in  1810, 
and  his  widow  kept  up  the  same  method  of 
breeding  until  1845,  when  she  sold  the  horses  to 
the  Russian  government.  These  horses  have  been 
of  vast  service  in  Russia,  where  even  in  the 
eighteenth  century  the  steppes  were  filled  with 
wild,  scrubby  but  hardy  little  horses  to  such  an 
extent  that  even  the  poorest  peasant  could  own 
one  or  two.  The  Orlofs  have  done  much  to 
improve  these  steppe  ponies  and  it  is  upon  them 


FOREIGN    HORSES    OF    VARIOUS    KINDS    185 

that  the  Russian  cavalry  largely  depends  for 
remounts. 

The  fastest  of  these  trotters  can  go  a  2.20  clip, 
but  I  have  heard  that  a  rate  like  this  can  be  main- 
tained only  a  short  while.  They  are  not  so  sym- 
metrical as  our  Morgans  or  Clay-Arabians,  but 
they  have  immensely  more  substance  than  the 
Standard  Bred  Trotters.  I  do  not  see  how  they  can 
find  any  very  useful  place  in  this  country.  We 
could  from  our  own  stock  quickly  develop  a  better 
looking  coach  horse,  and  I  believe  we  will  do  it, 
but  never  until  we  keep  in  mind  that  type  is 
nine-tenths  of  any  horse  breeding  battle  that  is 
ever  won. 

The  English  Hackneys  at  one  period  promised 
to  be  popular  in  this  country.  This  popularity 
was  stimulated  by  fashion,  and  the  English 
breeders  did  not  fail  to  take  advantage  of  the  fad 
that  possessed  some  Americans  of  wealth.  The 
Hackney  comes  from  the  Dutch  horses  by  way  of 
the  Norfolk  trotter.  He  is  a  horse  of  substance 
and  easily  acquires  a  high  step  with  much  knee 
action.  In  the  show  ring  he  is  exhibited  after  the 
English  fashion  and  makes  a  very  lively  picture. 


186  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

But  his  step  is  not  light.  He  pounds  the  ground  as 
though  he  wished  the  earth  to  tremble,  and  the 
Chinese  feel  his  tread  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world.  He  has  no  very  fitting  place  here,  no  more 
than  the  Orlof,  either  in  his  purity  or  as  a  cross 
with  our  own  horses.  We  can  easily  do  without 
him,  and  accomplish  the  creation  of  heavy  har- 
ness and  coach  horse  without  the  assistance  of 
this  English  type.  Originally  in  England  the 
Hackney  was  a  knock-a-bout  horse,  good  under 
the  saddle  and  in  harness;  but  he  has  been  bred 
up  to  large  size  and  very  heavy  weight.  Some  of 
the  American  breeders  of  hackney  ten  or  fifteen 
years  ago  when  they  went  to  England  for  stock  to 
breed  from  paid  such  prices  that  the  English 
laughed  with  delight,  for  they  never  dreamed  of 
such  a  market  at  home.  The  fad  is  fastly  dying 
out,  and  it  is  likely  that  in  a  few  years  there  will 
not  be  opportunity  even  in  the  show  rings  for 
their  exhibition.  As  they  are  deficient  in  courage 
and  staying  qualities,  this  will  not  be  a  bad 
result  of  lack  of  popularity. 


CHAPTER  ELEVEN 
THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES 

ON  the  first  day  of  January,  1905,  we  had  in  the 
United  States  2,888,710  mules  with  a  taxable 
value  of  $251,840,378.  This  shows  how  extensive 
an  industry  mule-breeding  is,  and  also  what  an 
important  place  the  mule  occupies  in  the  econ- 
omy of  the  country.  The  mule  is  an  ideal  farm 
animal.  They  would  find  it  hard  to  get  along  with- 
out him  on  the  plantations  in  the  South.  The 
negro  is  the  poorest  horseman  in  the  world.  As  a 
groom  he  is  careless  and  neglectful.  A  horse 
must  be  attended  to  or  he  will  get  ill  and  die. 
The  mule  seems,  if  not  to  thrive  on  neglect,  at 
least  not  seriously  to  deteriorate.  On  many  of  the 
Southern  plantations  mules  never  know  either 
currycomb  or  brush  during  all  their  long  lives. 
And  they  live  to  a  great  age.  I  have  never  seen 
any  statement  based  on  carefully  ascertained  sta- 

187 


188  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

tistics  at  to  the  comparative  length  life  of  the 
horse  and  mule,  but  I  am  persuaded,  from  my 
own  observation  that  on  an  average  a  mule  lives 
twenty-five  per  cent  longer.  And  there  is  pretty 
nearly  as  much  work  in  an  old  mule  as  in  a  young 
one.  They  can  also  be  put  to  hard  work  sooner 
than  a  horse.  So  the  working  life  of  a  mule  is 
lengthened  at  both  ends.  Moreover,  they  can  sub- 
sist on  what  would  be  starvation  for  a  horse. 

If  mules  were  bred  at  all  in  America  in  the  Col- 
onial era  it  was  to  a  very  limited  extent.  But  after 
the  Revolution  they  were  bred  a  little,  and  George 
Washington  was  the  man  who  encouraged  this 
new  industry.  In  1786,  before  his  election  to  the 
Presidency,  Washington  accepted  from  the  King 
of  Spain  the  present  of  a  large  Spanish  Jack.  He 
called  the  jack  Royal  Gift,  and  thus  advertised 
his  services  in  a  Philadelphia  paper: 

"  Royal  Gift  —  A  Jack  Ass  of  the  first  race  in 
the  Kingdom  of  Spain  will  cover  mares  and  jen- 
nies (she  asses)  at  Mount  Vernon  the  ensuing 
spring.  The  first  for  ten,  the  latter  for  fifteen 
pounds  the  season.  Royal  Gift  is  four  years  old, 
is  between  14 J  and  15  hands  high,  and  will  grow, 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  189 

it  is  said,  until  he  is  twenty  or  twenty-five  years  of 
age.  He  is  very  bony  and  stout  made,  of  a  dark 
colour  with  light  belly  and  legs.  The  advantages, 
which  are  many,  to  be  derived  from  the  propaga- 
tion of  asses  from  this  animal  (the  first  of  the 
kind  that  was  ever  in  North  America),  and  the 
usefulness  of  mules  bred  from  a  Jack  of  his  size, 
either  for  the  road  or  team,  are  well  known  to 
those  who  are  acquainted  with  this  mongrel 
race.  For  the  information  of  those  who  are  not,  it 
may  be  enough  to  add,  that  their  great  strength, 
longevity,  hardiness,  and  cheap  support,  give 
them  a  preference  of  horses  that  is  scarcely  to  be 
imagined.  As  the  Jack  is  young,  and  the  General 
has  many  mares  of  his  own  to  put  to  him,  a  limited 
number  only  will  be  received  from  others,  and 
these  entered  in  the  order  they  are  offered.  Let- 
ters directed  to  the  subscriber,  by  Post  or  other- 
wise, under  cover  to  the  General,  will  be  entered 
on  the  day  they  are  received,  till  the  number  is 
completed,  of  which  the  writers  shall  be  informed 
to  prevent  trouble  or  expense  to  them. 

"JOHN  FAIRFAX,  Overseer, 
"February^,  1786." 

Washington  believed  in  mules  and  in  the  in- 
ventory of  live  stock  in  his  will  made  in  1799, 


190  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

mention  is  made  of  two  covering  jacks,  three 
young  ones,  ten  she  asses,  forty-two  working 
mules,  and  fifteen  younger  ones.  It  was  a  much 
later  period,  however,  before  mules  were  exten- 
sively bred  in  the  United  States.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  Royal  Gift,  it  is  likely  that  the  jacks 
brought  from  Europe  were  rather  inferior.  But  in 
1832,  Henry  Clay  imported  two  pure-blood  Cata- 
lan asses,  a  jack  and  a  jenny.  They  were  landed 
in  Maryland,  and  there  the  jenny  had  a  foal. 
This  foal  was  called  Warrior.  This  jack  was  fif- 
teen hands  high,  and  he  became  a  great  ass  pro- 
genitor in  Kentucky.  The  jennies  there  at  that 
time  were  not  well  bred,  but  mongrels,  mostly  a 
light  shade  of  blue,  with  gray,  buff  and  grizzly 
hair,  nearly  as  stiff  as  hog  bristles,  generally  with 
a  colored  stripe  across  the  shoulders  and  down  the 
back,  ewe-necked,  flat  in  the  rib,  low  carriage, 
and  heavy  headed,  entirely  destitute  of  any  good 
quality  except  hardihood  and  ability  to  get  a  liv- 
ing where  any  other  animal,  save  a  goat,  would 
have  starved  to  death.  With  such  jennies  began 
the  first  effort  to  improve  the  race  in  Kentucky, 
and  they  flocked  to  Warrior  in  droves.  He  seem- 


THE     BREEDING     OF    MULES  191 

ed  to  cross  advantageously  with  them,  just  as  the 
Cashmere  goat  crosses  on  the  common  hairy 
goat.  His  progeny  seemed  rapidly  to  lose  the  lead- 
ing traits  of  their  dams,  and  to  inherit  in  a  re- 
markable degree  the  color  and  outward  charac- 
teristics of  their  sire.  Four  years  later  Dr.  Davis 
imported  in  South  Carolina  another  Catalan  jack. 
He  was  16  hands  high  and  of  great  weight.  This 
jack,  Mammoth,  was  mated  to  the  young  War- 
rior jennies  then  just  maturing,  thus  making  the 
second  cross  of  pure  blood,  and  upon  these  two 
crosses  rest  to-day  the  breeding  of  the  race  of 
jacks  known  throughout  the  United  States  as  the 
Kentucky  Jack.  These  Kentucky  jacks  are  still 
popular,  and  last  year  the  British  Government 
bought  a  number  of  them  to  take  to  India. 

Mr.  J.  L.  Jones,  of  Columbia,  Tennessee,  is  a 
recognized  authority  on  mule  breeding,  and  I  pre- 
fer to  give  my  readers  his  counsel  in  a  matter  with 
which  he  is  better  acquainted  than  I  am. 

He  says: 

"There  are  two  kinds  or  classes  of  the  mule, 
viz.,  one  the  produce  of  the  male  ass  or  jack  and 
the  mare ;  and  the  other,  the  offspring  of  the  stal- 


192  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

lion  and  female  ass.  The  cross  between  the  jack 
and  the  mare  is  properly  called  the  mule,  while 
the  other,  the  produce  of  the  stallion  and  female 
ass,  is  designated  a  hinny.  The  mule  is  the  more 
valuable  animal  of  the  two,  having  more  size, 
finish,  bone,  and,  in  fact,  all  the  requisites  which 
make  that  animal  so  much  prized  as  a  useful 
burden-bearing  animal.  The  hinny  is  small  in 
size,  and  is  wanting  in  the  qualities  requisite  to  a 
great  draught  animal.  This  hybrid  is  supposed 
not  to  breed,  as  no  instance  is  known  to  us  in 
which  a  stallion  mule  has  been  prolific,  although 
he  seems  to  be  physically  perfect,  and  shows  great 
fondness  for  the  female,  and  serves  readily. 
There  are  instances  on  record  where  the  female 
has  produced  a  foal,  but  these  are  rare. 

"The  mule  partakes  of  the  several  character- 
istics of  both  its  parents,  having  the  head,  ear, 
foot,  and  bone  of  the  jack,  while  in  height  and 
body  it  follows  the  mare.  It  has  the  voice  of 
neither,  but  is  between  the  two,  and  more  nearly 
resembles  the  jack.  It  possesses  the  patience,  en- 
durance, and  sure-footedness  of  the  jack,  and  the 
vigor,  strength,  and  courage  of  the  horse.  It  is 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  193 

easily  kept,  very  hardy,  and  no  path  is  too  pre- 
cipitous or  mountain  trail  too  difficult  for  one  of 
them  with  its  burden.  The  mule  enjoys  compara- 
tive immunity  from  disease,  and  lives  to  a  com- 
paratively great  age.  The  writer  knows  of  a  mule 
in  Middle  Tennessee  that,  when  young,  was  a 
beautiful  dapple  gray,  but  is  now  thirty  years  old, 
and  is  as  white  as  snow.  This  mule  is  so  faithful 
and  true,  and  has  broken  so  many  young  things 
to  work  by  his  side,  that  he  bears  the  name  of 
'  Counsellor. '  The  last  time  he  was  seen  by  the 
writer  he  was  in  a  team  attached  to  a  reaper, 
drawing  at  a  rate  sufficient  to  cut  fifteen  acres  of 
grain  per  day. 

"Kentucky  mules  are  showy,  upheaded,  fine- 
haired  animals,  their  extra  qualities  being  attrib- 
utable to  the  strong,  Thoroughbred  blood  in  the 
greater  part  of  their  dams.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  Tennessee,  where  it  is  thought  the  climactic  in- 
fluences produce  a  little  better,  smoother,  and 
finer  hair,  coupled  with  early  maturity,  which 
qualities  are  much  prized  by  an  expert  buyer. 

"  The  mules  in  Missouri,  Illinois,  Indiana,  and 
some  of  the  so-called  Northwestern  states,  have 


194  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

large  bone,  foot,  body,  and  substance,  and  pos- 
sess great  strength,  but  they  are  wanting  in  that 
high  style,  finish,  and  fine  hair  that  characterize  the 
produce  of  some  of  the  states  further  south,  and 
are  longer  in  maturing.  Mule-breeding  in  these 
states  is  one  of  the  most  important  branches  of  in- 
dustry, and  is  supposed  to  date  back  prior  to  1787. 

"  There  is  no  kind  of  labor  to  which  a  horse  can 
be  put  for  which  a  mule  may  not  be  made  to  an- 
swer, while  there  are  many  for  which  mules  are 
more  peculiarly  adapted  than  horses ;  and  among 
the  rest,  that  of  mining,  where  the  mule  is  used, 
and  many  of  them  need  no  drivers.  They  can  en- 
dure more  hardships  than  the  horse,  can  live  on 
less,  and  do  more  work  on  the  same  feed  than 
any  other  beast  of  burden  we  use  in  America. 

"A  cotton-planter  in  the  South  would  feel  un- 
willing to  raise  his  crop  with  horses  for  motive 
power.  The  horse  and  the  labor  of  the  cotton  belt 
could  not  harmonize,  while  the  negro  is  at  home 
with  the  mule. 

"A  mule  may  be  worked  until  completely 
fagged,  when  a  good  feed  and  a  night's  rest  will 
enable  it  to  go;  but  it  is  not  so  with  a  horse. 


THE     BREEDING     OF     MULES  195 

"The  mule  being  better  adapted  for  carrying 
burdens,  for  the  plough,  the  wagon,  building  of 
railroads,  and,  in  fact,  all  classes  of  heavy  labor, 
let  us  see  how  it  compares  with  the  noble  animal, 
the  horse,  in  cost  of  maintenance. 

"From  repeated  experiments  that  have  come 
under  my  observation  in  the  past  twenty-five 
years,  I  have  found  that  three  mules,  15  hands 
high,  that  were  constantly  worked,  consumed 
about  as  much  forage  as  two  ordinary-sized 
horses  worked  in  the  same  way,  and  while  the 
mules  were  fat  the  horses  were  only  in  good  work- 
ing order.  Although  a  mule  will  live  and  work  on 
very  low  fare,  he  also  responds  as  quickly  as  any 
animal  to  good  feed  and  kind  treatment.  True,  it 
is  charged  that  the  mule  is  vicious,  stubborn, 
and  slow,  but  an  experience  in  handling  many 
mules  on  the  farm  has  failed  to  sustain  the  charge, 
save  in  few  instances,  and  in  these  the  propen- 
sities were  brought  about  by  bad  handling.  They 
are  truer  pullers  than  the  horse,  and  move  more 
quickly  under  the  load.  Their  hearing  and  vision 
are  better  than  the  horse.  The  writer  has  used 
them  in  all  the  different  branches  of  farming, 


196  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

from  the  plough  to  the  carriage  and  buggy,  and 
thinks  they  are  less  liable  to  become  frightened 
and  start  suddenly ;  and  if  they  do  start,  they  usu- 
ally stop  before  damage  is  done,  while  the  horse 
seldom  stops  until  completely  freed.  The  mule  is 
more  steady  while  at  work  than  the  horse,  and  is 
not  so  liable  to  become  exhausted,  and  often  be- 
comes so  well  instructed  as  to  need  neither  driver 
nor  lines. 

*'  In  the  town  in  which  the  writer  lives,  a  cotton 
merchant,  who  is  also  in  the  grocery  trade,  owned 
a  large  sorrel  mule,  16  hands  high,  that  he  worked 
to  a  dray  to  haul  goods  and  cotton  to  the  depot, 
half  a  mile  from  his  business  house.  This  mule 
often  went  the  route  alone,  and  was  never  known 
to  strike  anything,  and  what  was  more  remark- 
able, would  back  up  at  the  proper  place  with  the 
load,  there  being  one  place  to  unload  groceries 
and  another  for  cotton. 

(( They  are  also  good  for  light  harness,  many  of 
them  being  very  useful  buggy  animals,  traveling 
a  day's  journey  equal  to  some  horses.  The  writer 
obtained  one  from  a  firm  of  jack  breeders  in  his 
vicinity,  that  was  bred  by  them,  as  an  experiment, 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  197 

being  out  of  a  Thoroughbred  mare  by  a  royally 
bred  jack.  She  is  16  hands  high,  as  courageous  as 
most  any  horse.  In  traveling  a  distance  of  thirty- 
two  miles,  this  mule,  with  two  men  and  the  bag- 
gage, made  it,  as  the  saying  goes,  'under  a  pull/ 
in  four  hours,  and  when  arrived  at  the  journey's 
end  seemed  willing  to  go  on. 

"  We  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  underrat- 
ing the  horse,  for  it  is  a  noble  animal,  well  suited 
for  man's  wants,  but  for  burden-bearing  and 
drudgery  is  more  than  equaled  by  the  patient, 
faithful,  hardy  mule. 

"There  are  two  kinds  of  jacks  —  the  mule- 
breeding  and  the  ass-breeding  jack,  the  latter 
being  used  chiefly  in  breeding  jacks  for  stock 
purposes.  It  is  only  with  the  mule-breeding  jack 
that  we  will  deal. 

"A  good  mule- jack  ought  to  be  not  less  than  15 
hands  high,  and  have  all  of  the  weight,  head,  ear, 
foot,  bone,  and  length  that  can  be  obtained, 
coupled  with  a  broad  chest,  wide  hips,  and  with 
all  the  style  attainable  with  these  qualities. 
Smaller  jacks  are  often  fine  breeders,  and  pro- 
duce some  of  our  best  mules,  and  when  bred  to 


198  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

the  heavier,  larger  class  of  mares  show  good  re- 
sults, but  as  'like  produces  like,'  the  larger  jacks 
are  preferable. 

"  Black,  with  light  points,  is  the  favorite  color 
for  a  jack,  but  many  of  our  gray,  blue,  and  even 
white  jacks  have  produced  good  mules.  In  fact, 
some  of  the  nicest,  smoothest,  red-sorrel  mules 
have  been  the  product  of  these  off-colored  jacks; 
but  the  black  jacks  get  the  largest  proportion  of 
good-colored  colts  from  all  colored  mares. 

"  The  breed  of  the  jack  is  also  to  be  looked  into. 
There  are  now  so  many  varieties  of  jacks  in  the 
United  States,  all  of  which  have  merits,  that  it  will 
be  well  to  examine  and  see  what  jack  has  shown 
the  best  results.  We  have  the  Catalonian,  the 
Andalusian,  the  Maltese,  the  Majorca,  the  Italian, 
and  the  Poitou  —  all  of  which  are  imported  —  and 
the  native  jack.  Of  all  the  imported,  the  Catalo- 
nian is  the  finest  type  of  animal,  being  a  good 
black,  with  white  points,  of  fine  style  and  action, 
and  from  14£  to  15  hands  high,  rarely  16  hands, 
with  a  clean  bone.  The  Andalusian  is  about  the 
same  type  of  jack  as  the  Catalonian  having, 
perhaps,  a  little  more  weight  and  bone,  but  are 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  199 

all  off-colors.  The  Maltese  is  smaller  than  the 
Catalonian,  rarely  being  over  14  J  hands  high,  but 
is  nice  and  smooth.  The  Majorca  is  the  largest 
of  the  imported  jacks,  the  heaviest  in  weight, 
bone,  head,  and  ear,  and  frequently  grows  to  16 
hands.  These  are  raised  in  the  rich  island  of  Ma- 
jorca, in  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  While  they  excel 
in  weight  and  size,  they  lack  in  style,  finish  and 
action.  The  Italian  is  the  smallest  of  all  the  im- 
ported jacks,  being  usually  from  13  to  14  hands 
high,  but  having  good  foot,  bone,  and  weight,  and 
some  of  them  make  good  breeders.  The  Poitou  is 
the  latest  importation  of  the  jack,  and  is  little 
known  in  the  United  States.  He  is  imported  from 
France,  and  is  reported  to  be  the  sire  of  some  of 
the  finest  mules  in  his  native  land.  These  jacks 
have  long  hair  about  the  neck,  ears,  and  legs,  and 
are,  in  some  respects,  to  the  jack  race  what  the 
Clydesdale  is  to  other  horses.  He  is  heavy  set,  has 
good  foot  and  bone,  fine  head  and  ear,  and  of 
good  size,  being  about  15  hands  high. 

"  The  native  jack,  as  a  class,  is  heavier  in  body, 
having  a  larger  bone  and  foot  than  the  imported, 
and  shows  in  his  entire  make-up  the  result  of  the 


200  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

limestone  soil  and  the  grasses  common  in  this 
country.  He  is  of  all  colors,  having  descended 
from  all  the  breeds  of  imported  jacks.  But  the 
breeders  of  this  country,  seeing  the  fancy  of  their 
customers  for  the  black  jack  with  light  points, 
have  discarded  all  other  colors  in  selecting  their 
jacks,  and  the  consequence  is  that  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  jacks  in  the  stud  now,  for  mares,  are  of 
this  color. 

"The  native  jack,  being  acclimated,  seems  to 
give  better  satisfaction  to  breeders  of  mules  than 
any  other  kind.  From  observation  and  experience 
it  is  believed  that  our  native  jacks,  with  good  im- 
ported crosses  behind  them,  will  sire  the  mules 
best  suited  to  the  wants  of  those  who  use  them  in 
this  country,  and  will  supply  the  market  with 
what  is  desired  by  the  dealers.  The  colts  by  this 
class  of  jacks  are  stronger  in  make-up,  having 
better  body,  with  more  length,  larger  head  and 
ear,  more  foot  and  bone,  combined  with  style 
equal  to  the  colts  of  the  imported  jacks. 

"  While  many  fine  mules  are  sired  by  imported 
jacks,  this  is  not  to  be  understood  as  meaning 
that  imported  jacks  do  not  get  good  foals,  yet, 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  201 

taken  as  a  class,  we  think  that  the  mule  by  the 
native  jack  is  superior  to  any  other  class.  This 
conclusion  is  borne  out  by  an  experience  and  ob- 
servation of  some  years,  and  by  many  of  the  best 
breeders  and  dealers  in  the  United  States. 

"As  the  mule  partakes  very  largely  in  its  body 
and  shape  of  its  mother,  it  is  necessary  that  care 
should  be  taken  in  selecting  the  dam.  Many  sup- 
pose that  when  a  mare  becomes  diseased  and  un- 
fit for  breeding  to  the  horse,  then  she  is  fit  to 
breed  to  mules.  This  is  a  sad  mistake,  for  a  good, 
growing,  sound  colt  must  have  good,  sound  sire 
and  dam. 

"The  jack  may  be  ever  so  good,  yet  the  result 
will  be  a  disappointment  unless  the  mare  is  good, 
sound,  and  properly  built  for  breeding.  First,  she 
should  be  sound  and  of  good  color;  black,  bay, 
brown,  or  chestnut  is  preferred.  Her  good  color  is 
needed  to  help  to  give  the  foals  proper  color,  and 
this  is  a  matter  of  no  small  importance. 

"  This  should  not  be  understood  as  ignoring  the 
other  colors,  for  some  of  the  best  mules  ever  seen 
were  the  produce  of  gray  or  light-colored  mares, 
as  many  dealers  and  breeders  will  attest.  The 


THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

mare  should  be  well  bred;  that  is,  she  would  give 
better  results  by  having  some  good  crosses.  By  all 
means  let  her  have  a  cross  of  Thoroughbred,  say 
one-quarter,  supplemented  with  strong  crosses  of 
some  of  the  larger  breeds,  and  the  balance  of  the 
breeding  may  be  made  up  of  the  better  class  of 
the  native  stock.  The  mare  should  have  good 
length,  large,  well-rounded  barrel,  good  head, 
long  neck,  good,  broad,  flat  bone,  broad  chest, 
wide  between  the  hips,  and  good  style. 

"Having  selected  the  sire  and  the  dam,  the 
next  thing  is  to  produce  the  colt.  The  sire,  if  well 
kept  and  in  good  condition,  is  ready  for  business, 
but  not  so  with  the  mare.  The  dam  is  to  be  in  sea- 
son ;  that  is,  in  heat.  Before  being  bred,  to  prevent 
accidents,  the  mare  should  be  hobbled  or  pitted. 
Having  taken  this  precaution,  the  jack  may  be 
brought  out,  and  both  will  be  ready  for  service. 
Care  should  be  taken  not  to  overserve  the  jack, 
as  he  should  not  be  allowed  to  serve  over  two 
mares  a  day. 

"The  mare,  after  being  served,  may  be  put  to 
light  work,  or  put  upon  some  quiet  pasture  by 
herself  for  several  days  until  she  passes  out  of 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  203 

season,  when  the  may  be  turned  out  with  other 
stock  to  run  until  the  eighteenth  day,  when  she 
should  be  taken  up  to  be  teased  by  a  horse,  to 
ascertain  if  she  be  in  season,  and  if  so,  she  should 
be  bred  again.  Some  breeders  think  the  ninth, 
some  the  twelfth,  and  some  the  fifteenth  day 
after  service  is  the  proper  day  to  tease,  but  ob- 
servation has  taught  me  that  the  best  results 
come  from  the  eighteenth-day  plan.  After  she 
becomes  impregnated  she  should  have  good  treat- 
ment; light  work  will  not  hurt  her,  but  care 
should  be  taken  not  to  over-exert.  She  should 
have  good,  nutritious  grass  if  she  runs  out  and 
is  not  worked,  but  if  worked  she  should  be 
well  fed  on  good  feed.  The  foal  will  be  due  in 
about  333  days.  As  the  time  approaches  for  foal- 
ing, the  mare  should  be  put  in  a  quiet  place, 
away  from  other  stock,  until  the  foal  is  dropped. 
She  will  not  need  any  extra  attention,  as  a  rule, 
but  should  be  looked  after  to  see  that  everything 
goes  right. 

"After  the  foal  comes,  it  will  not  hurt  the  mare 
or  colt  for  the  dam  to  do  light  work,  provided  she 
is  well  fed  on  good,  nutritious  food.  Should  she 


204  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

hot  be  worked  and  is  on  good  grass,  and  fed 
lightly  on  grain,  the  colt  will  grow  finely,  if  the 
mare  gives  plenty  of  milk;  if  she  does  not  the  foal 
should  be  taught  to  eat  such  feed  as  is  most  suit- 
able. 

"The  colt  should  be  well  cared  for  at  all  times, 
and  particularly  while  following  its  mother,  for 
the  owner  may  want  to  sell  at  weaning  time, 
which  is  four  months  old,  and  its  inches  then  will 
fix  the  price.  Good  mules,  at  weaning  time,  usual- 
ly bring  from  $75  to  $90,  and  sometimes  as  high 
as  $100. 

"Feeders,  dealers,  and  buyers  prefer  the  mare 
mule  to  the  horse,  and  they  sell  more  readily. 
The  females  mature  earlier,  are  plumper  and 
rounder  of  body,  and  fatten  more  readily  than 
the  male. 

In  weaning  the  colt,  much  is  accomplished  by 
proper  treatment  preparatory  to  this  trying  event 
in  the  mule's  life.  It  should  be  taught  to  eat  while 
following  its  mother,  so  that  when  weaned  it  will 
at  once  know  how  to  subsist  on  that  which  is  fed 
to  it.  The  best  way  to  wean  is  to  take  several  colts 
and  place  them  in  a  close  barn,  with  plenty  of 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  205 

good,  soft  feed,  such  as  bran  and  oats  mixed, 
plenty  of  sound,  sweet  hay,  and,  in  season,  cut- 
grass,  remembering  at  all  times  that  nothing  can 
make  up  for  want  of  pure  water  in  the  stable. 
Many  maybe  weaned  together  properly.  After  they 
have  remained  in  the  stable  for  several  days  they 
maybe  turned  on  good,  rich  pasture.  Do  not  forget 
to  feed,  as  this  is  a  trying  time.  The  change  from  a 
milk  to  a  dry  diet  is  severe  on  the  colt.  They  may 
all  be  huddled  in  a  barn  together,  as  they  seldom 
hurt  each  other.  Good,  rich  clover  pastures  are 
fine  for  mules  at  this  age,  but  if  they  are  to  be 
extra  fine,  feed  them  a  little  grain  all  the  while. 

"There  is  little  variety  in  the  feed  until  the 
mules  are  two  years  old,  at  which  time  they  are 
very  easily  broken.  If  halter-broken  as  they  grow 
up,  all  there  is  to  do  in  breaking  one  is  to  put  on  a 
harness,  and  place  the  young  animal  beside  a 
broken  mule,  and  go  to  work.  When  it  is  thor- 
oughly used  to  the  harness,  the  mule  is  already 
broken.  Light  work  in  the  spring,  when  the  mule 
is  two  years  old,  will  do  no  hurt,  but,  in  the 
opinion  of  many  breeders  and  dealers,  make  it 
better,  provided  it  is  carefully  handled  and  fed. 


206  THE     HORSE     IN    AMERICA 

"  How  to  fatten  the  mule  is  one  of  the  most 
important  parts  of  mule  -  raising,  for  when  the 
mule  is  offered  to  a  buyer,  he  will  at  once 
ask :  *  Is  he  fat  ? '  and  fat  goes  far  in  effecting 
a  sale.  A  rough,  poor  mule  could  hardly  be 
sold,  while  if  it  is  fat,  the  buyer  will  take  it 
because  it  is  fat. 

"  The  mule  should  be  placed  in  the  barn  with 
plenty  of  room,  and  not  much  light,  about  the  1st 
of  November,  before  it  is  two  years  old,  and  fed 
about  twelve  ears  of  (Indian)  corn  per  day,  and 
all  the  nice,  well-cured  clover  hay  it  will  eat,  and 
there  kept  until  about  the  1st  of  April.  Then,  in 
the  climate  of  Middle  Tennessee,  the  clover  is 
good,  and  the  mule  may  be  turned  out  on  it,  and 
the  corn  increased  to  about  twenty  ears  or  more 
per  day.  They  will  eat  more  grain,  without  fear  of 
*  firing;'  that  is,  heating  so  as  to  cause  scratches, 
as  the  green  clover  removes  all  danger  from  this 
source.  During  the  time  they  run  on  the  clover 
they  eat  less  hay,  but  this  should  always  be  kept 
by  them.  About  the  1st  of  May  the  clover  blooms, 
and  is  large  enough  to  cut,  in  the  latitude  of  Ten- 
nessee. The  mules  should  be  placed,  then,  in  the 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  207 

barn,  with  a  nice  smooth  lot  attached,  and  plenty 
of  pure  water.  A  manger  should  be  built  in  the  lot, 
four  feet  wide  by  four  feet  high,  and  long  enough 
to  accommodate  the  number  of  mules  it  is  de- 
sired to  feed.  This  should  be  covered  over  by  a 
shed  high  enough  for  the  mule  to  stand  under,  to 
prevent  the  clover  from  wilting.  The  clover 
should  be  cut  while  the  dew  is  on,  as  this  pre- 
serves Jhe  aroma,  and  they  like  it  better.  While 
this  is  going  on  in  the  lot,  the  troughs  and  racks 
in  the  barns  should  be  supplied  with  all  the  shell- 
ed corn  (maize)  the  mules  will  eat.  *  Why  shell  it  ? ' 
some  one  will  ask.  Because  they  eat  more  of 
it,  and  relish  it.  A  valuable  addition  at  all  times 
consists  of  either  short-cut  sheaf  oats,  or  shelled 
oats,  and  bran,  if  not  too  expensive. 

"From  this  time  the  mule  should  be  pressed 
with  all  the  richest  of  feed,  if  it  is  desired  to  make 
it  what  is  termed  in  mule  parlance,  'hog  fat.' 
Ground  barley,  shelled  oats,  bran,  and  shelled 
corn,  should  be  given,  not  forgetting  to  salt  regu- 
larly all  the  while,  nor  omitting  the  hay  and  green 
corn  blades.  While  all  those  are  essential,  oats 
and  bran,  although  at  some  places  expensive,  are 


208  THE     HORSE     IN    AMERICA 

regarded  as  the  ne  plus  ultra  for  fattening  a  mule, 
and  giving  a  fine  suit  of  hair.  Be  sure  to  keep  the 
barn  well  bedded,  for  if  the  hair  becomes  soiled 
from  rolling  it  lowers  the  value,  as  the  mule  is 
much  estimated  for  its  fine  coat. 

"The  grain  makes  the  flesh,  and  the  green 
stuff  keeps  the  system  of  the  mule  cool,  and  bal- 
ances the  excess  of  carbonaceous  elements  in  the 
grain  fed. 

"The  manner  of  feeding,  if  properly  carried 
out,  with  the  proper  foundation  to  start  with,  will 
make  mules,  two  years  old  past,  weigh  from 
1150  pounds  to  1350  pounds  by  the  1st  of  Septem- 
ber, at  which  time  the  market  opens. 

"  A  feeder  of  eighteen  years'  experience  claims 
that  oats  and  bran  will  put  on  more  fine  flesh  in  a 
given  time,  coupled  with  a  smoother,  glossier  coat 
of  hair,  than  any  other  known  feed.  The  ex- 
perienced feeder  follows  this  method  from  wean- 
ing till  two  years  old. " 

In  war  the  mule  is  invaluable  both  as  a  pack  ani- 
mal and  for  army  trains.  He  can  stand  the  hard 
usage  of  army  life  much  better  than  horses.  In  our 
great  Civil  War  they  were  used  very  extensively. 


THE    BREEDING    OF    MULES  209 

In  his  book  General  Grant  told  of  a  certain  army 
chaplain  who  always  took  an  active  part  in  the 
battles.  On  one  occasion  the  roads  were  blocked 
up  with  mule-drawn  trains,  and  it  was  most  de- 
sirable for  them  to  get  out  of  the  way.  The  chap- 
lain lent  a  hand  to  the  teamsters.  Now  mule- 
drivers  use  language  more  forceful  and  pictur- 
esque than  pure  or  elegant.  Well,  the  parson  "  cus- 
sed and  swore, "  with  the  rest  of  them,  and  help- 
ed straighten  out  the  tangle.  That  evening  the 
General  thanked  the  chaplain,  but  said:  "How 
do  you  reconcile  the  language  you  used  with  your 
conscience  ?  "  "  Oh,' '  answered  the  chaplain/  *  do 
mules  understand  any  other  language  ?" 


CHAPTER  TWELVE 

HOW    TO    BUY    A    HORSE 

IT  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  give  any  advice  on 
the  purchasing  of  horses  to  professionals  or  to 
amateurs  who  know  the  subject  thoroughly.  The 
professional  knows  his  business  so  well,  or  is  apt 
to  think  that  he  does,  that  my  advice  would  be 
almost  an  impertinence,  while  the  amateur  who 
thinks  he  knows  is  incapable  of  learning.  It  is,  by 
the  way,  a  most  astonishing  thing  how  few  men 
there  are  who  are  willing  to  confess  ignorance  as 
to  horses.  A  little  experience  makes  them  won- 
drous wise.  I  once  heard  of  a  reader  for  a  great 
publishing  house  who  "turned  down"  a  treatise 
on  the  horse  because  "the  writer  did  not  know 
the  subject  sufficiently  well."  This  reader,  I 
learned  on  inquiry,  had  studied  the  subject  thor- 
oughly, for  one  summer  a  friend  lent  him  a  polo 
pony  which  was  under  his  constant  observation 

210 


HOW    TO     BUY    A     HORSE 

for  nearly  three  months.  This  conceit  that  we 
have  in  our  knowledge  of  horses  whets  our  appe- 
tite for  gambling  on  horse-races,  and  makes  the 
opportunity  of  the  bookmakers  to  undo  us  much 
greater  and  surer.  It  also  induces  us  to  make  un- 
wise purchases  and  then  conclude  that  horses  are 
delusions  and  snares  while  dealers  are  rogues  of 
deepest  dye.  Only  a  few  days  before  this  page  was 
written,  I  heard  of  a  college  professor  who 
bought  a  pair  of  horses  at  a  fancy  price  and  with- 
out an  examination  from  a  veterinary,  only  to 
find  after  reaching  his  country  place  that  one  of 
the  horses  was  blind.  So,  while  I  am  sure  that  ad- 
vice is  needed,  I  am  not  at  all  certain  that  it  is  in 
demand. 

We  all  recall  the  doggerel  rule: 

"  One  white  leg,  inspect  him; 
Two  white  legs,  reject  him; 
Three  white  legs,  sell  him  to  your  foes; 
Four  white  legs,  feed  him  to  the  crows !  " 

That  is  advice  to  which  no  attention  should  be 
paid  at  all,  unless  the  markings  be  such  that  a 
person  looking  for  a  horse  positively  dislikes. 
And  that  is  about  the  only  rule  I  advise  a  person 


THE     HORSE     IN     AMERICA 

not  to  consider  in  buying  a  horse.  Everything  else 
should  be  looked  over  carefully,  for  pretty  nearly 
everything  about  a  horse  has  more  or  less  im- 
portance, usually  more  than  less. 

The  first  thing  a  prospective  purchaser  should 
determine  is  why  he  wants  a  horse,  and  what  he 
wants  to  do  with  him.  Then  he  should  decide 
whether  he  means  to  buy  the  horse  on  his  own 
judgment  or  on  that  of  some  one  else.  If  he  means 
to  be  his  own  judge  he  should  go  alone;  if  he 
means  to  have  a  friend  select  his  horse  he  should 
let  the  friend  go  alone.  But  he  should  never  take 
his  friend  along  with  him  to  give  advice  and  assist 
in  driving  a  bargain.  This  kind  of  thing  is  annoy- 
ing to  a  dealer,  and  tempts  him  to  match  his  ex- 
perienced and  hard-worked  wit  with  that  of  the 
seldom-used  judgment  of  the  buyer.  That  the 
dealer  will  win  in  such  a  contest  goes  without  say- 
ing. I  have  taken  for  granted  that  the  buyer  will 
go  to  a  dealer  for  any  advice  of  any  kind  is  wasted 
upon  one  who  would  buy  a  horse  from  a  friend, 
unless  he  coveted  his  friend's  horse  and  wanted 
that  particular  animal  from  personal  knowledge 
of  him. 


HOW    TO     BUY    A     HORSE  213 

Horse  dealers  are  frequently  spoken  of  as  un- 
conscionable rogues.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that 
many  of  them  do  lack  the  virtue  of  probity  and 
straight  speaking.  But  a  reputable  dealer  in 
horses  with  an  established  business  can  be  as  fair 
as  any  other  business  man,  and  I  have  known 
many  such.  Such  an  horse  dealer  has  a  reputation 
to  maintain  that  is  as  valuable  to  him  as  that  of  a 
banker  is  to  him.  If  you  will  place  confidence  in 
him  he  is  not  apt  to  betray  it,  for  he  values  his 
customer  and  knows  that  there  will  probably  be 
other  sales  to  make. 

But  the  dealers  who  advertise  in  the  newspa- 
pers that  they  will  sell  from  private  stables  horses 
worth  $500  or  $1000  for  $100  or  $200  are  the 
pirates  of  the  trade.  They  give  one  excuse  or  an- 
other why  such  immense  bargains  are  offered, 
and  they  make  many  sales.  They  are  really  "  con- 
fidence-men," and  why  the  police  authorities 
should  permit  them  to  continue  in  their  thieving 
operations  is  one  of  the  mysterious  manifesta- 
tions of  city  life  that  I  could  never  understand.  It 
was  from  one  of  these  rogues  that  the  college  pro- 
fessor I  just  mentioned  bought  his  prize  pair. 


214  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

Never  on  any  account  look  for  or  even  at  any  of 
these  advertised  bargains  in  a  private  stable.  A 
good  horse  has  a  market  value  and  a  dealer 
knows  it  thoroughly.  When  he  offers  to  sell  below 
that  value,  you  may  depend  upon  it  that  he  is  try- 
ing to  cheat  you  by  imposing  upon  your  igno- 
rance. Having  determined  what  kind  of  a  horse 
you  want,  and  what  kind  of  work  you  purpose 
doing  with  a  horse,  go  to  a  dealer  and  tell  him 
all  about  it  just  as  you  would  to  your  lawyer  or 
doctor.  He  will  show  you  horses  and  quote  prices. 
If  the  prices  are  higher  than  you  care  to  pay  tell 
him  that  also,  and  he  will  show  you  others.  He 
usually  begins  with  the  higher-priced  horses,  un- 
less he  "sizes  you  up"  as  lean  of  pocket-book. 
But  in  a  large  establishment  the  price  you  have 
fixed  in  your  own  mind  is  likely  to  be  arrived  at 
very  quickly.  Then  you  must  determine  whether 
the  horse  shown  to  you  is  of  the  quality  you  de- 
sire. But  be  not  deceived  by  the  hope  that  you 
can  get  a  very  superior  and  well-trained  horse  for 
very  much  less  than  he  is  worth.  This  can  often  be 
done  with  green  horses.  By  green  horses,  I  do  not 
mean  unbroken  horses,  but  horses  that  have  not 


HOW    TO     BUY    A     HORSE  215 

been  educated  and  developed.  A  skilful  horse- 
man, either  rider  or  driver,  will  nearly  always 
prefer  a  green  horse  because  of  the  pleasure  in 
training  him,  and  also  of  the  chance  of  securing  a 
prize  at  a  minimum  of  cost.  But  an  inexperienced 
horseman  will  probably  never  make  anything  out 
of  a  green  horse,  so  he  had  best  not  consider  such. 
Having  found  a  horse  that  seems  to  meet  re- 
quirements, the  horse  should  be  tried  and  the  re- 
putable dealer  will  give  the  buyer  every  oppor- 
tunity for  such  a  trial.  When  the  trial  is  satisfac- 
tory, the  buyer  should  have  him  examined  by  a 
veterinary,  and  if  sound  the  transaction  should  be 
closed.  Warranties  are  not  of  much  good.  They 
cannot  be  enforced  except  through  suits  at  law; 
and  a  lawsuit  even  when  won  would  usually  cost 
more  than  the  loss  on  an  unsatisfactory  horse,  if 
the  horse  were  sent  to  the  auction  block  immedi- 
ately. Then  try  again.  To  buy  one  bad  horse  is  no 
reason  whatever  for  discouragement.  One  of  the 
Tattersalls  said  that  to  have  one  good  horse  in  a 
lifetime  is  as  much  as  a  man  should  expect. 

The  splendid  specimens  that  we  see  in  the 
show  rings  inspire  us  with  the  desire  to  have  one 


£16  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

or  several  of  these,  and  as  each  show  is  followed 
by  a  sale  there  is  our  easy  opportunity.  But  I  am 
persuaded  that  to  one  not  himself  a  horse-show 
exhibitor  nothing  is  more  unwise  than  to  buy  a 
horse-show  winner.  These  horses  are  most  high- 
ly keyed  up  and  trained  by  most  skilful  hands.  In 
the  hands  of  one  less  skilful  they  rapidly  deteri- 
orate and  in  the  ordinary  park  and  road  work 
they  lose  a  major  part  of  that  style  which  origi- 
nally inspired  the  purchase.  This  skill  in  hand- 
ling has  made  itself  so  manifest  that  even  in  the 
horse  shows  the  managers  have  been  obliged 
to  exclude  the  dealers  from  many  of  the  classes. 
There  are  professional  horse-show  exhibitors 
notwithstanding  this  exclusion  of  the  dealers, 
and  their  horses  are  probably  more  unsafe 
to  buy  than  those  of  the  dealers  themselves. 
No,  the  horse-show  horse  is  for  the  horse-show 
exhibitor. 

Another  discouraging  thing  about  one's  first 
horses  is  the  illnesses  which  they  contract.  As  fre- 
quently as  not  this  is  due  to  the  inexperience  of 
the  new  owner,  or  to  the  change  of  home  and  cli- 
mate. Dealers  buying  horses  frequently  have  the 


HOW    TO     BUY    A     HORSE  217 

animals  inoculated  against  cold  and  fever  - 
shipper's  fever,  it  is  called.  This  should  always  be 
done  as  the  result  has  been  found  to  be  most  ex- 
cellent. "You  can  get  no  use  out  of  a  Kentucky 
horse  for  the  first  year,"  I  have  heard  New  York- 
ers say.  That  may  have  been  their  experience; 
but  when  treated  with  the  proper  serum  before 
shipment  they  do  not  suffer  to  any  extent  with 
colds  and  influenza.  There  is  one  disease,  how- 
ever, that  I  do  not  know  how  to  provide  against 
—  nostalgia.  The  generality  of  horses  are  not 
very  affectionate,  for  they  are  not  very  intelligent, 
being  trained  more  by  fear  than  anything  else 
and  going  on  in  their  work  through  custom.  But 
they  do  love  their  homes,  and  that  they  should 
suffer  from  home-sickness  until  the  satisfaction 
with  the  new  environment  wipes  out  the  longing 
is  inevitable.  The  homing  instinct  of  a  horse  is 
very  .strong  and  also  interesting.  Take  a  horse 
ten  or  even  twenty  miles  in  a  direction  never 
traveled  before,  and  then  turn  him  towards 
home  over  a  new  route,  and  he  knows  it  instantly 
and  shows  that  he  knows  it  by  a  quickened  gait 
and  a  renewal  of  spirit.  So  these  things  should  be 


218  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

taken  into  consideration  with  a  new  horse,  and 
due  allowance  made  for  them. 

A  man  who  has  an  establishment  and  keeps 
many  horses  has  one  very  difficult  problem.  It  is 
customary  for  the  coachman  to  get  commissions, 
whether  the  coachman  has  been  consulted  in  the 
purchase  or  not.  The  dealers  understand  this, 
and  add  to  the  price  of  the  horse  what  will  have 
to  be  paid  to  the  coachman.  I  have  had  dealers 
ask  me  plainly  whether  I  kept  a  coachman  to  set- 
tle with.  And  once  when  I  sold  a  horse  to  a  dis- 
tinguished professional  man  in  New  York,  he 
sent  a  check  for  $50  more  than  the  agreed  price, 
asking  that  that  sum  be  given  to  the  coachman  as 
he  did  not  want  the  horse  lamed  or  put  out  of 
condition.  This  is  a  stable  tradition  that  we  have 
borrowed  from  England,  and  is  a  tyranny  that 
should  be  suppressed  not  only  by  law  but  by  cus- 
tom. I  sold  a  horse  recently  to  a  gentleman  at  a 
price  not  at  all  above  his  value.  His  negro  coach- 
man called  at  my  house  for  his  commission.  I 
sent  him  away  in  short  order  and  at  once  wrote 
his  master  a  note  telling  of  the  visit  and  its  ob- 
ject, and  requesting  him  to  pay  his  own  servants. 


HOW    TO    BUY    A     HORSE  219 

If  a  man  have  leisure  for  travel,  the  bleeding 
farm  is  a  good  place  to  purchase  a  horse.  At  most 
of  these  farms  the  horses  are  green,  but  at  some 
they  are  thoroughly  trained  before  being  offered 
for  sale.  But  none  of  these  horses  are  accustomed 
to  the  fearsome  sights  and  sounds  of  the  city.  So  I 
should  advise  none  but  skilful  horsemen  to  go  to 
the  farms  to  make  purchases. 

But  the  wisest  course  that  an  amateur  can  pur- 
sue is  to  take  a  loss  quickly.  Just  as  soon  as  you 
find  that  you  do  not  want  a  horse,  sell  him.  If 
there  be  a  purchaser  ready  at  hand,  well  and 
good;  if  not  there  is  sure  to  be  an  auction  block 
not  far  away. 


CHAPTER  THIRTEEN 
THE    STABLE    AND    ITS    MANAGEMENT 

BADLY-CONSTRUCTED,  badly-kept,  and  badly- 
managed  stables  are  the  contributing  causes  to 
most  of  the  illnesses  that  horses  suffer  from.  As 
nine  stables  out  of  ten  in  America  are  bad  in  all 
these  three  regards,  I  am  confirmed  in  the  belief 
that  horses  are  very  hardy  animals  instead  of  the 
delicate  creatures  that  we  sometimes  think  they 
are.  That  so  many  of  them  should  be  equal  to 
hard  and  continuous  work  considering  the  condi- 
tions that  surround  them  when  they  are  at  home 
is  really  quite  remarkable.  Even  on  breeding 
farms,  where  it  is  the  business  of  the  proprietors 
to  rear  fine  animals  for  sale,  the  stables  more  fre- 
quently than  not  are  wretched  barns  not  fit  even 
for  the  lodgement  of  mules.  This  is  the  case  in 
Kentucky,  even  in  the  Blue  Grass  region.  In 

many  of  the  stables  there  I  have  seen  tons  of 

220 


THE    STABLE    AND     ITS    MANAGEMENT 

manure,  that  were  most  valuable  for  fertilization, 
left  in  the  stables  for  no  other  reason  that  I  could 
fathom  than  that  it  seemed  to  be  no  one's  bus- 
iness to  take  it  away.  "  Why  don't  you  spread  it 
on  the  pastures,  or  use  it  on  the  ploughed  fields  ?" 
I  asked  one  gentleman.  "  Oh,  the  ground  does  not 
need  it,"  he  replied.  I  did  not  like  to  go  any  fur- 
ther for  fear  of  seeming  intrusive.  Then  again  I 
did  not  believe  that  a  man  who  thought  tilled 
ground  even  in  the  limestone  enriched  land  of  the 
Blue  Grass  section  would  not  be  better  for  stable 
manure  would  bother  particularly  about  the  ad- 
vantages of  keeping  stables  clean. 

Stables  should  be  light  not  dark.  There  is  a  no- 
tion as  old  as  the  hills  that  a  stable  should  be  a 
dark  and  somber  place.  There  are  those  who  still 
hold  stoutly  to  this  view.  Why  a  stable  should  be 
dark  and  the  living  room  of  a  human  being  light, 
I  cannot  conceive.  Light  and  air  are  the  great 
purifying  agents.  Germs  of  various  kinds  multi- 
ply mightily  in  the  dark,  while  many  are  killed  by 
the  light.  The  only  reason  that  is  given  for  a  dark 
stable  is  that  constant  light  in  a  horse's  eyes  is 
likely  to  injure  his  organs  of  sight.  I  grant  that 


222  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

cheerfully.  Still  there  is  no  reason  why  there 
should  not  be  light  without  the  light  shining  di- 
rectly into  the  eyes  of  the  horses.  It  is  as  easy  as 
possible  to  place  the  windows  above  the  heads  of 
the  horses,  and  even  to  shield  them  with  shutters 
that  open  upwards,  shutters  such  as  are  so  gener- 
ally used  on  seaside  cottages. 

Ventilation  is  most  important.  This  should  al- 
ways be  provided  for,  however,  so  that  in  securing 
it  there  will  not  also  be  draughts  either  on  the 
body  or  the  legs  of  a  horse.  To  accomplish  this  is 
not  difficult  even  in  the  stables  of  the  dry-goods- 
box  pattern.  The  one  supreme  affection  of  a 
horse  is  for  his  home,  and  it  is  as  little  as  an  own- 
er can  do  to  make  that  home  comfortable.  Clean- 
liness is  an  imperative  necessity.  Without  it  the 
other  things  go  for  naught.  There  is  no  good  rea- 
son why  a  stable  should  not  be  as  clean  as  any 
other  part  of  a  gentleman's  establishment.  And 
yet  this  is  so  seldom  the  case  that  a  man  who  has 
visited  a  stable  often  brings  with  him  to  his  house 
odors  that  are  unmistakable  and  entirely  objec- 
tionable to  the  sensitive  olfactories  of  the  more 
delicate  members  of  his  household.  This  cleanli- 


THE    STABLE    AND     ITS    MANAGEMENT 

ness  can  only  be  secured  by  unremitting  good 
housekeeping.  The  stable  should  not  only  be 
cleaned  very  thoroughly  once  a  week,  but  it 
should  be  kept  clean  the  other  six  days  in  the 
week.  Any  owner,  no  matter  whether  he  be  a 
good  horseman  or  not,  can  see  to  this.  He  may 
not  know  the  nice  points  in  harnessing  a  horse  or 
even  the  points  of  a  horse,  but  his  eyes  and  his 
nose  can  tell  him  whether  his  stable  is  clean.  The 
droppings  should  be  removed  as  soon  as  they  are 
discovered,  an<]  they  should  not  be  piled  up  in  the 
stable  or  agains|  one  of  the  walls  of  the  stable  on 
the  outside,  but  Amoved  to  a  distance,  if  in  the 
country  and  treatec^fqr  fertilizers;  in  a  city  stable 
they  should  be  remoye^  daily.  This  latter  can  be 
done  without  any  expanse  to  the  owner,  as  there 
are  manure  collectors  qnly  too  glad  to  cart  it 
away. 

Drainage  is  also  most  important,  but  it  should 
always  be  surface  drainage.  Pipes  beneath  the 
floor  are  always  getting  clogged  up,  and  hence  be- 
coming foul.  Besides  plumbing  everywhere  is 
expensive  and  bothersome.  There  should  be  as 
little  as  possible  of  it  in  a  stable.  Of  course  run- 


THE     HORSE     IN    AMERICA 

ning  water  is  most  desirable  if  not  necessary.  But 
it  should  be  restricted  to  two  hydrants,  one  for 
carriage  washing  and  one  for  drinking  water.  The 
surface  drainage  can  be  got  rid  of  by  having  the 
floor  of  the  stable  a  little  bit  elevated  above  the 
surrounding  ground.  Where  the  stable  can  be  lo- 
cated so  that  there  is  declining  ground  on  one  side 
other  than  the  exit,  there  is  natural  drainage 
which  is  a  great  advantage.  The  stalls  also  should 
have  a  very  slight  incline,  so  that  they  will  keep 
dry  naturally.  This  stall  inclination,  however, 
should  be  very  slight,  as  it  is  desirable  that  a 
horse  should  have  all  his  feet  pretty  nearly  on  the 
same  level. 

Box-stalls  or  not?  This  is  a  disputed  matter. 
Some  owners  have  only  box-stalls  in  their  stables ; 
some  none  at  all.  In  my  opinion  both  ideas  are 
wrong.  Cutting  up  a  stable  into  a  series  of  boxes 
does  not  facilitate  drainage,  ventilation,  light,  or 
cleanliness.  Then  again  it  is  doubtful  whether  a 
horse  in  a  loose  box-stall  does  not  often  acquire 
habits  of  independence  that  are  sometimes  un- 
comfortable and  dangerous.  In  a  stall  a  horse 
is  tied,  he  is  also  more  easily  observed  and 


THE    STABLE    AND    ITS    MANAGEMENT     225 

therefore  always  under  control.  Box-stalls,  how- 
ever, are  excellent  for  a  horse  that  comes  in  very 
tired,  or  for  one  that  is  sick.  So  I  should  advise 
that  in  every  stable  there  be  one  or  two  box-stalls, 
but  that  as  a  general  thing  the  horses  be  kept  in 
ordinary  stalls..  These  stalls  should  be  9  feet  long 
and  5  feet  wide.  A  wider  stall  makes  it  easier 
for  a  horse  to  get  cast.  The  ceiling  of  a  stable 
should  not  be  less  than  12  feet.* 

Every  stable  should  be  kept  cool  in  summer 
and  warm  in  winter.  But  artificial  heat  should 
never  be  used,  as  it  is  in  some  of  the  sumptuous 
stables  of  the  over-rich  in  the  large  cities.  A  horse 
does  his  work  in  the  open,  and  there  is  no  sense  in 
pampering  him.  In  very  cold  weather  the  stable 
should  be  kept  as  warm  as  is  possible  without 
stoves  or  steam-pipes,  and  the  horse  made  com- 
fortable with  good  blankets  and  plenty  of  straw 
for  his  bedding.  In  the  summer  when  the 


*  A  carpenter  in  my  neighborhood  once  asked  me  to  select  a  horse  for 
him  from  a  drove  that  was  on  sale  in  the  village.  I  picked  out  a  large  fine 
fellow,  and  the  carpenter  bought  him.  The  next  day  I  saw  him  with  an- 
other horse.  "Why,  where  is  the  roan  ?"  I  asked.  "Oh,  I  had  to  take  him 
back,  he  was  too  big  for  the  stable!"  "Why  the  dickens  did  you  not  make 
the  stable  bigger  ?  "  was  my  comment  to  the  carpenter. 


THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

thermometers  are  trying  to  climb  to  a  hundred 
in  the  shade,  then  the  shutters  should  be  regu- 
lated so  as  to  keep  out  the  direct  rays  on  the 
sunny  side,  and  other  windows  and  doors  be  left 
open. 

Harness  room  and  coach  room  depend  al- 
most entirely  on  the  size  of  the  establishment  that 
is  kept.  Both,  however,  should  be  light  —  then 
both  can  be  seen  without  difficulty  by  the  owner 
when  he  makes  inspections.  These  inspections,  by 
the  way,  should  not  be  made  at  stated  times,  but 
at  any  time.  An  owner  who  expects  his  horses  to 
be  kept  in  good  condition  and  turned  out  with 
proper  harness  to  proper  traps  must  take  an  in- 
terest in  his  stable  and  be  on  good  terms  with  his 
servants.  There  is  no  suggestion  of  familiarity  in 
this,  but  only  the  good  understanding  and  the 
good  feeling  that  always  exists  between  that  mas- 
ter and  man,  when  the  one  gives  and  other  gets 
good  service. 

A  well-groomed  horse  is  so  fine  a  thing  that  we 
have  latterly  applied  the  term  to  fine  men  and 
beautiful  women.  The  grooming  of  a  horse  is  an 
art,  which  is  not  practised  on  more  than  one  or 


THE    STABLE     AND     ITS    MANAGEMENT 

two  per  cent  of  the  horses  at  work  in  the  United 
States.  The  others  are  cleaned  in  a  happy-go- 
lucky  fashion,  which  makes  them  neither  clean  nor 
beautiful.  This  is  not  as  it  should  be;  a  horse  that 
is  compelled  to  give  service  to  a  man  is  entitled  to 
good  attention.  An  ungroomed  or  improperly 
groomed  horse  has  an  offensive  odor.  This  does 
not  conduce  to  the  pleasure  of  a  person  using  such 
a  horse  nor  to  the  well  being  of  the  horse  himself. 
In  grooming  a  horse  the  brush  and  cloth  alone 
are  needed.  A  currycomb  —  once  universally 
used  —  should  never  be  put  on  a  horse.  It  serves 
a  good  purpose,  however,  in  cleaning  the  brush. 
And  that  is  its  only  service.  Where  an  owner 
knows  or  suspects  that  the  currycomb  is  used 
directly  on  the  horse  it  is  better  to  banish  it  en- 
tirely. When  a  horse  has  been  put  away  covered 
with  sweat  and  the  sweat  allowed  to  dry,  it  is  very 
much  easier  to  remove  this  salty  deposit  with  a 
currycomb  than  with  a  brush.  But  a  horse  should 
never  be  put  away  without  being  thoroughly 
groomed  except  when  he  comes  in  so  tired  that 
the  grooming  would  further  fatigue  him.  This  is 
sometimes  the  case.  When  it  is  so  the  horse 


THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

should  have  quite  loosely- wrapped  bandages  put 
on  his  legs,  he  should  be  well  blanketed,  given  a 
swallow  of  water  and  turned  into  a  box-stall 
knee  deep  in  straw.  Then  when  this  horse  is  rest- 
ed enough  to  be  groomed,  the  mud  on  his  legs 
will  have  become  caked  and  will  come  off  by 
using  the  hand  and  a  wisp  of  straw,  the  polishing 
being  finished  with  the  brush  and  cloth.  The 
dried  sweat  should  be  removed  in  the  same  way. 
When  a  muddy  horse  comes  into  the  stable  it  is 
a  great  temptation  to  play  the  hose  on  his  legs, 
and  so  wash  the  mud  off.  This  should  never  be 
done.  The  only  places  where  water  should  be  ap- 
plied to  a  horse  are  the  feet  and  the  other  hairless 
portions.  These  should  be  washed  with  a  sponge. 
The  washing  of  a  horse's  feet  before  he  is  put 
away  is  most  important.  "No  foot,  no  horse"  is 
the  old  English  rule.  And  it  is  as  true  as  gospel. 
The  feet  should  always  be  kept  clean  in  the  sta- 
ble, and  at  night  they  should  be  packed  with 
sponge  or  felt.  The  foot  of  a  horse  is  an  impor- 
tant part  of  him,  and  every  owner  should  see  that 
they  are  well  looked  after.  And  in  accomplishing 
this  he  will  not  find  it  an  easy  job,  for  a  horse  has 


THE    STABLE    AND     ITS    MANAGEMENT 

to  have  his  shoes  changed  every  three  or  four 
weeks,  and  if  the  feet  be  not  ruined  by  the  farrier 
or  the  fads  of  his  groom  or  coachman  then  he  is 
lucky.  Every  man  that  has  anything  to  do  with 
horses  sooner  or  later  develops  notions  as  to 
horseshoeing,  the  blacksmith  usually  knowing 
much  less  than  any  one  else  but  confident  that  he 
knows  it  all.  He  should  know  it  all,  as  to  shoe 
horses  is  his  business.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, his  practice,  if  he  be  permitted  to  have  his 
own  sweet  will,  is  to  lame  horses  and  ruin  their 
feet.  There  are  a  few  good  horseshoers,  however, 
and  if  an  owner  find  one  in  his  neighborhood  he 
is  lucky.  I  shall  not  attempt,  however,  to  write  a 
treatise  on  horseshoeing.  There  are  books  in 
abundance  on  the  subject,  and  any  man  who 
wishes  to  become  an  accomplished  amateur  on 
the  subject  can  find  plenty  to  study  and  also  an 
abundance  of  instruction.  But  there  are  a  few 
principles  that  dominate  all  else.  The  shoe  should 
be  neither  too  large  nor  too  small.  A  large  shoe 
stretches  the  hoof  too  much,  a  small  shoe  pinches 
the  hoof  and  makes  corns.  Then  do  not  permit 
the  blacksmith  to  pare  the  sole  and  frog  of  the 


230  THE     HORSE     IN    AMERICA 

foot  or  rasp  or  burn  the  hoof  to  make  it  fit  the 
shoe  he  has  selected.  The  shoe  should  be  made  to 
fit  the  hoof,  and  as  few  nails  used  as  is  consistent 
with  security.  As  the  hoof  is  growing  all  the  time, 
just  as  a  man's  finger-nails  grow,  the  shoes  need 
often  to  be  changed  so  that  they  will  not  be  too 
small  and  so  contract  the  hoof.  The  ideal  horse  is 
the  barefoot  horse,  but  this  is  not  possible  when 
a  horse  is  used  on  pavements  or  hard  roads.  Then 
the  shoe  should  not  be  too  heavy.  Heavy  shoes 
merely  make  a  horse's  work  very  much  harder. 

The  feeding  and  watering  of  a  horse  are  most 
important.  The  horse  can  carry  only  a  little  food, 
as  his  stomach  is  small  compared  with  his  size 
and  his  need  of  nourishment.  But  he  can  drink  a 
good  deal  of  water.  He  should  have  both  food  and 
water  equal  to  his  needs.  He  should  always  be  fed 
three  times  a  day,  and  he  would  not  be  the  worse 
if  he  were  treated  as  the  Germans  treat  them- 
selves, with  four  meals  a  day.  Moreover,  a  horse's 
food  should  be  varied  a  little.  Oats  and  hay  three 
times  a  day  for  three  hundred  and  sixty- five  days 
in  the  year  may  suffice,  but  it  seems  to  me  very 
like  a  cruelty  when  it  is  so  easy  to  vary  the  food 


THE    STABLE    AND     ITS    MANAGEMENT     231 

with  barley,  beans,  pease,  corn,  turnips,  and 
many  other  things  easy  to  obtain  and  not  at  all 
expensive.  A  little  nibble  of  fresh  grass  occasion- 
ally is  also  a  grateful  change,  but  not  much  of  this 
should  be  given  when  a  horse  is  doing  steady 
work.  The  allowance  of  oats  in  the  United  States 
army  is  ten  quarts  a  day.  This  with  plenty  of  hay 
is  a  good  allowance  and  will  keep  a  horse  in  good 
condition,  but  a  hearty  eater  can  make  way  with 
twelve  quarts  a  day  and  be  all  the  better  for  it. 
The  hay  should  not  be  fed  from  a  rack  over  the 
manger,  but  from  the  ground.  When  carrots  are 
fed  they  should  be  sliced ;  whole  they  might  choke 
a  horse.  When  corn  is  fed  it  should  be  given  on 
the  cob.  In  this  way  the  horse  improves  his  teeth 
and  helps  his  gums,  while  he  is  obliged  to  feed 
slowly. 

A  horse  should  be  watered  before  eating,  and 
the  last  thing  at  night  before  the  stable  is  closed. 
And  when  the  horse  comes  in  tired  he  should  be 
given  a  mouthful  of  water,  even  before  he  is  per- 
mitted to  drink  his  fill.  I  have  seen  stables  where 
there  was  running  water  in  a  trough  in  each  stall. 
I  do  not  recommend  this,  nor  yet  a  common 


THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

drinking-place  for  all  the  horses  in  a  stable.  A 
bucket  filled  from  a  hydrant  and  held  up  to  the 
horse  is  the  best  way.  A  horse  needs  salt.  The  best 
way  to  give  it  to  him  is  to  put  a  crystal  of  rock  salt 
in  his  trough  and  let  it  remain  there.  He  will  then 
take  it  when  he  pleases,  and  not  too  much  at  a 
time. 

One  man  cannot  properly  look  after  an  unlim- 
ited number  of  horses.  If  the  stableman  does  no 
driving  he  can  look  after  four  together  with  the 
vehicles  and  harness.  If  he  has  to  go  out  with  the 
carriages  he  cannot  manage  more  than  three. 
Without  a  proper,  sober,  and  sensible  stableman, 
a  gentleman  can  never  have  any  satisfaction  out 
'of  his  horses.  They  are  hard  to  get,  but  there  are 
such.  If  a  man  be  an  accomplished  horseman  he 
can  train  his  own  servants,  and  be  pretty  sure  of 
nearly  always  being  well  served.  If  he  know  noth- 
ing himself  he  will  have  to  use  his  own  intelli- 
gence and  learn.  In  case  he  will  not  do  this  he  had 
better  not  keep  horses.  Saddles  should  be  dried  in 
the  sun  when  it  is  possible.  Stirrups  and  bits 
should  be  cleaned  at  once  as  it  is  much  easier  to 
prevent  rust  than  remove  it.  The  same  rule 


THE    STABLE    AND    ITS    MANAGEMENT     233 

should  apply  to  all  harness  and  to  carriages.  The 
best  results  will  never  be  obtained  unless  the 
grooms  be  given  ample  time  to  harness  or  saddle 
a  horse.  Sometimes,  of  course,  in  cases  of  emerg- 
ency this  has  to  be  done  "  on  the  jump,"  but  gen- 
•  erally  speaking  the  groom  should  be  given  time  to 
do  his  work  with  calm  carefulness. 


CHAPTER  FOURTEEN 
RIDING    AND    DRIVING 

ALL  of  us  have  heard  of  natural  riders.  It  must  be 
that  when  any  one  with  knowledge  of  the  art  of 
riding  speaks  in  this  way  that  he  means  to  say 
that  the  individuals  alluded  to  had  a  great  nat- 
ural capacity  to  acquire  the  art  of  riding,  for  rid- 
ing is  an  art  and  does  not  come  to  any  one  except 
through  practice,  instruction,  and  imitation. 
Some  persons  can  acquire  a  foreign  tongue  with 
what  seems  an  easy  facility  —  while  others  of 
equal  mentality  —  have  the  greatest  difficulty 
and  never  succeed  in  any  eminent  degree.  Those 
to  whom  the  acquirement  of  foreign  tongues  is 
easy  have  a  gift  for  languages,  just  as  some  others 
have  a  gift  for  mathematics  or  for  rhyming  or  for 
drawing.  And  so  it  is  in  Equitation.  To  some 
riding  comes  easily,  to  others  it  is  difficult,  while 
some  others  seem  absolutely  incapable  of  acquir- 

234 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  235 

ing  a  good  seat,  good  hands,  and  that  knowledge 
of  horse  nature  which  complete  the  equipment  of 
every  expert  in  the  art.  I  confess  that  I  do  not 
know  much  about  riding  schools,  nor  indeed  that 
I  have  seen  much  of  them.  When  I  was  a  boy  in 
Kentucky  there  were  no  riding  schools  there,  and 
I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  there  have  ever  been. 
And  yet  so  competent  a  judge  and  careful  an  ob- 
server as  Mr.  Edward  L.  Anderson  has  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  the  Kentuckians  are  the 
best  riders  in  America. 

If  this  be  so,  and  I  agree  with  him,  it  must  be 
that  the  Kentuckians  in  educating  their  horses 
also  educated  themselves.  This  seems  reasonable 
enough,  for  the  Kentucky  saddle-horse  is  the  best 
trained  of  any  saddle  animals  in  America,  though 
the  circus  tricks  of  what  are  called  the  "high- 
school  horse"  are  unknown.  It  used  to  be  com- 
mon there  at  the  county  fairs  to  have  rings  for 
men,  and  for  boys  under  fifteen,  in  which  they 
competed  with  one  another  as  to  skill  in  horse- 
manship. The  competitors  put  their  horses 
through  all  the  paces  and  were  required  by  the 
judges  to  change  horses,  so  as  to  see  what  each 


236  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

rider  could  do  on  a  strange  horse.  These  rings 
were  most  interesting,  and  the  largest  crowds  of 
visitors  were  usually  attracted  by  these  features.  I 
never  saw  any  "circus  tricks"  but  once.  Then  a 
German,  who  had  served  in  the  Civil  War,  en- 
tered in  the  contest  making  his  horse  do  the  com- 
mon high-school  feats,  including  that  of  going  to 
his  knees  and  lying  down.  This  German  carried 
off  the  blue  ribbon  to  the  amazement  of  many,  in- 
cluding myself.  The  fact  proved,  however,  that 
the  Kentuckians,  who  happened  to  be  judges  that 
day,  were  not  inhospitable  to  foreign  ideas,  and 
recognized  that  the  best  rider  was  the  one  who 
had  the  greatest  control  over  his  horse  and  could 
get  the  most  out  of  him.  Now  I  believe  that  they 
were  right,  though  at  the  time  I  protested  against 
such  a  judgment  with  all  my  might.  Since  then  in 
the  army  riding  schools  many  of  these  arts  are 
properly  included  in  the  course  of  instruction.  No 
good  knowledge  is  amiss  in  a  horse,  and  the  best 
rider  is  he  who  can  make  his  horse  do  the  most 
kinds  of  things,  even  though  some  of  them  seem 
rather  absurd  and  useless.  It  goes  rather  against 
the  grain  for  me  to  say  this  for  I,  like  most  gentle- 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  237 

men  riders  in  America,  was  brought  up  with  the 
English  notion  that  to  ride  straight  and  fast  and 
be  in  at  the  finish  was  both  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  horsemanship,  while  I  looked  upon  any- 
thing else  as  not  only  superfluous  but  rather  un- 
manly. In  this  country  at  that  time,  and  to  a  very 
great  extent  now,  we  looked  upon  all  the  Conti- 
nental people  of  Europe  as  most  unsportsmanlike 
and  mere  dandy  frivolers  in  horsemanship.  This 
is  the  case  in  England  to-day,  universally  the 
case.  There  the  hunting  field  and  the  polo 
grounds  are  the  only  places  where  horsemanship 
is  put  to  the  test.  In  those  fields  the  riding  of  Eng- 
lishmen and  Irishmen  is  superb.  No  other  people 
can  compete  with  them.  That  is  natural  enough, 
however,  as  they  do  more  in  the  way  of  hunting 
and  polo  than  any  others  and  pay  more  atten- 
tion to  the  breeding  of  horses  suitable  to  these 
kinds  of  work.  But  the  prejudice  against  the  Con- 
tinentals in  horsemanship  is  as  insular  as  many 
other  opinions  that  are  cherished  there.  It  is  also 
entirely  undeserved.  Among  the  French,  the  Ger- 
mans, the  Austrians  and  Italians  are  splendid 
riders,  men  who  can  go  anywhere  an  Englishman 


238  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

can,  and  also  perform  feats  an  Englishman  never 
dreamed  of. 

I  recall  very  well  when  Buffalo  Bill  first  took 
his  "Broncho  Busters"  to  England  that  the  press 
and  the  people,  particularly  the  horsemen,  insist- 
ed that  these  vicious  wild  horses,  that  had  been 
spoiled  in  the  breaking,  were  merely  trick  horses, 
trained  to  their  antics  and  taught  to  buck  and 
plunge  and  turn  somersaults.  At  length  came  the 
request  that  some  English  riders  be  permitted  to 
try  the  bronchos.  The  request  was  hospitably  en- 
tertained, and  one  afternoon  several  men  ap- 
peared. They  insisted,  however,  that  they  be  per- 
mitted to  use  English  saddles  and  bridles.  This 
request  was  acceded  to  and  the  experiments  were 
tried.  I  never  saw  a  more  pitiful  exhibition  of 
helplessness.  They  tumbled  off  as  though  they 
were  inexperienced  babies,  and  some  were  more 
or  less  hurt.  Indeed  the  experiments  resulted  in  so 
many  accidents  that  they  were  given  up  as  too 
dangerous.  The  English  saddle  and  the  English 
seat  are  well  adapted  to  the  hunting  field,  but  not 
at  all  suitable  for  the  kind  of  riding  cow-punchers 
have  to  do  and  the  kind  of  horses  that  they  have 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  239 

to  use.  This  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  when  an 
Englishman  goes  into  ranch  life  in  this  country, 
and  many  of  them  have  done  it,  they  soon  adopt 
the  Mexican  saddle  and  the  cowboy  seat.  The 
many  exhibitions  given  by  Cody  in  Europe  have 
made  the  people  over  there  believe  that  the 
Rough  Rider  is  the  typical  American  horseman. 
It  is  unquestionably  an  American  style  that  is 
well  adapted  to  the  work  and  the  purpose  which 
created  it.  And  yet  there  are  no  schools  at  which 
a  man  can  learn  rough  riding  except  the  ranches. 
There  I  am  sure  there  is  no  systematic  instruc- 
tion; but  the  beginner  observes  and  imitates  the 
experts,  and  by  practice  acquires  the  art  which 
enables  him  to  "bust"  a  broncho.  Some  learn 
quickly,  some  slowly,  and  some  never  at  all. 

This  is  as  it  is  in  other  kinds  of  riding  whether 
in  the  park,  over  the  hurdles  or  in  the  hunting 
field.  Instruction,  imitation,  and  practice  are 
what  make  a  rider  —  the  man  who  rides  the 
most  being  apt  to  be  the  best.  Even,  however, 
when  a  man  rides  a  great  deal,  unless  he  use  intel- 
ligence he  will  never  become  either  expert  or 
graceful.  I  have  known  men  who  rode  for  many 


240  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

years  without  acquiring  either  grace  or  skill  in 
the  saddle.  This  was  either  from  inaptitude  or 
from  a  careless  disregard  of  the  principles  of  the 
art.  I  have  known  other  men  who  had  strong 
seats,  which  enabled  them  to  acquit  themselves 
well  in  the  hunting  field,  but  who  never  were 
graceful  or  seemed  entirely  at  ease.  They  simply 
lacked  the  grace  that  usually  is  part  and  parcel  of 
good  horsemanship.  It  is  generally  supposed 
that  at  West  Point  Military  Academy  there  is 
maintained  the  best  riding  school  in  the  country. 
This  is  probably  true.  But  I  have  seen  compara- 
tively few  American  army  officers  who  looked 
"  smart"  in  the  saddle.  Their  idea  is,  no  doubt,  to 
be  businesslike  rather  than  finished.  In  this  I  be- 
lieve they  are  quite  wrong  for  "  slouchiness  "  is  out 
of  harmony  with  the  military  seat  just  as  it  is  in  the 
park  or  the  show  ring.  It  finds  its  only  appropriate 
place  among  the  rough  riders  of  the  plain. 

"  I  saw  young  Harry,  with  his  beaver  on, 
His  cuisses  on  his  thighs,  gallantly  arm'd, — 
Rise  from  the  ground  like  feather'd  Mercury, 
And  vaulted  with  such  ease  into  his  seat, 
As  if  an  angel  dropp'd  down  from  the  clouds, 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  241 

To  turn  and  wind  a  fiery  Pegasus ; 

And  witch  the  world  with  noble  horsemanship." 

The  Indian  should  probably  be  considered  the 
real  American  type  *  of  rider.  There  were  no 
horses  here  when  the  whites  came,  but  the  In- 
dians rather  quickly  caught  and  subjugated  some 
of  the  wild  horses  that  were  descended  from  the 
castaways  of  the  Spanish  explorers.  They  un- 
doubtedly taught  themselves  to  ride  in  the  first 
place,  though  many  of  them  had  seen  mounted 
white  men.  It  is  impossible  to  think  that  in  the 
many  generations  that  they  have  been  using 
horses,  that  they  have  not  improved  in  their 
horsemanship.  At  any  rate  they  have  a  style  of 
their  own,  and  as  bareback  riders  they  cut  a  great 
dash.  But  they  are  not  good  horsemen.  They  are 
cruel  to  their  horses,  and  are  far  from  getting  the 
best  results  out  of  their  mounts.  The  whites,  as 


*  I  hope  it  will  never  occur  to  a  visitor  to  this  country  to  think  that 
what  is  called  the  mounted  traffic  squad  of  the  New  York  police  represent 
any  American  type  of  riders.  With  them  it  is  go-as-you-please  and  kind 
Heaven  help  us  from  falling  off.  Only  a  few  moments  before  making  this 
note  I  saw  a  group  of  these  police  going  through  the  Fourth  avenue.  Some 
were  ambling,  some  singlefooting,  some  in  a  hand  gallop  and  some  trot- 
ting. One  noble  horse,  fit  for  a  general's  charger,  was  going  two  or  three 
gaits  at  once  and  the  rider  keeping  his  seat  with  the  help  of  the  reins. 


THE     HORSE     IN     AMERICA 

was  proved  year  after  year  in  the  frontier  war- 
fare, can  outride  them  even  when  the  whites 
carry  more  weight  and  more  impedimenta. 

The  best  horseman  usually  gets  his  instruction 
and  acquires  most  of  his  skill  in  his  early  youth. 
But  there  is  no  use  in  putting  a  boy  on  a  horse  un- 
til he  has  intelligence  enough  to  learn  what  he  is 
told  to  do  and  strength  sufficient  to  keep  his  seat 
and  manage  his  horse.  The  pony  for  very  young 
children  is  merely  a  plaything.  No  child  ever 
learned  much  from  a  pony  or  by  means  of  a  pony. 
The  horse  is  what  a  man  rides,  and  it  is  upon  a 
horse  that  a  child  should  be  taught.  A  large  horse 
would  not  be  suitable  for  a  boy  of  ten  or  eleven, 
the  earliest  age  that  a  boy  can  learn  much  that  is 
valuable  of  the  art.  But  the  small  horse,  some- 
thing like  a  polo  pony  for  instance,  may  be  and 
should  be  very  much  of  a  horse  —  all  horse,  in- 
deed. Where  there  is  a  good  riding  school — that  is 
the  place  to  send  a  lad  for  his  first  instruction. 
There  are  some  grooms,  however,  who  make  ex- 
cellent instructors,  even  though  as  a  general  thing 
grooms  look  like  the  dickens  in  the  saddle.  They 
know  horses,  however,  and  know  how  to  ride 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  243 

them,  even  though  they  do  not  acquire  the  finish 
and  excellence  that  is  to  be  expected  of  gentle- 
men. But  as  critics  of  the  riding  of  others  they  are 
often  unexcelled.  Have  some  kind  of  a  master, 
unless  he  be  an  ignoramus,  for  a  lad  in  the  begin- 
ning, and  by  no  means  let  him  go  at  the  game  by 
the  light  of  nature.  Uninstructed  he  is  sure  to  ac- 
quire habits  that  it  will  be  harder  for  him  to  over- 
come than  it  would  have  been  for  him  to  be  cor- 
rect from  the  beginning.  And  he  should  be  given 
a  reason  for  everything  he  is  told  to  do.  That  it  is 
necessary  to  be  reasonable  in  riding  makes  me 
sometimes  think  that  it  would  be  just  as  well  not 
to  put  a  boy  on  a  horse  until  he  was  fifteen  or  six- 
teen. The  objection  to  this  delay  is  that  a  lad  will 
be  kept  out  of  four  or  five  years  of  fun  in  the  very 
playtime  of  his  life. 

A  beginner  should  use  only  a  snaffle-bit  with 
one  rein.  The  awkwardness  of  a  beginner  and  his 
disposition  to  help  keep  his  seat  with  the  aid  of 
the  reins  is  frequently  a  severe  hardship  on  a 
horse  and  pretty  sure  to  ruin  a  horse's  mouth. 
Besides  both  snaffle  and  curb  are  in  the  begin- 
ning confusing,  and  too  much  of  a  handful  for  a 


244  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

tyro  in  a  novel  position.  Of  course  a  correct  seat 
in  the  saddle  is  impossible  at  first,  but  an  effort  at 
it  should  be  made  from  the  start.  When  the  be- 
ginner is  placed  in  the  saddle  he  should  sit  up 
straight  and  let  his  legs  hang  down  straight.  Then 
the  stirrups  should  be  adjusted  so  that  when  the 
ball  of  the  foot  is  upon  the  iron,  the  leg  still  being 
straight,  the  heel  will  be  about  three  inches  below 
the  stirrup.  Then  the  rider  should  be  required  to 
so  bend  his  knees  that  his  toe  and  heel  will  be  on 
a  level  without  moving  back  into  the  saddle  so 
that  his  buttocks  will  be  against  the  cantle.  This 
bending  of  the  knees  will  bring  them  in  a  position 
so  that  they  can  clutch  the  horse  and  secure  his 
seat.  Great  emphasis  should  be  laid  upon  the 
fact  that  the  toes  should  not  be  turned  out.  The 
feet  should  be  parallel  with  the  horse.  When  they 
are  so  the  knees  come  in  contact  with  the  saddle 
and  the  seat  is  secured.  When  a  rider  turns  out  his 
toes  he  must  depend  upon  the  calf  of  the  leg  to 
form  his  clutch.  This  not  only  is  awkward,  but  it 
prevents  the  thighs  from  doing  their  part  of  the 
work. 

Being  thus  mounted  the  beginner  should  only 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  245 

walk  his  horse  at  first.  Indeed  I  should  not  rec- 
ommend anything  faster  than  a  walk  in  the  first 
lesson.  The  object  of  that  first  lesson  is  to  familiar- 
ize a  novice  to  a  novel  position,  and  enable  him 
to  know  something  of  the  sensation  of  being 
astride  a  horse.  If  he  go  faster  at  first  he  is  sure  to 
bump  around  and  tug  on  the  reins,  the  latter  be- 
ing about  the  greatest  sin  against  horsemanship. 
After  this  he  can  go  in  a  very  slow  trot,  and  still 
later  in  a  hand  gallop.  Having  acquired  the  ca- 
pacity to  keep  his  seat  in  these  gaits  with  his  feet 
parallel  to  the  horse  and  his  knees  well  in  and 
without  tugging  on  the  reins  to  keep  his  balance, 
he  has  reached  the  point  when  he  may  be  in- 
structed to  ride  with  both  reins,  snaffle,  and  curb. 
There  are  some  riders  who  never  use  other  than 
the  snaffle,  indeed  it  was  quite  a  fad  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  New  York  a  few  years  ago.  But  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  very  best  results  can  be  ob- 
tained without  the  curb.  The  curb  enables  a  rider 
to  keep  his  horse  better  in  hand,  and  a  horse  not 
in  hand  under  the  saddle  is  apt  to  do  several  dis- 
agreeable things  —  sprawl  or  be  slouchy  in  his 
gaits,  for  instance,  or  worse  than  all  tumble  down. 


246  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

To  hold  the  snaffle  and  curb  reins  in  the  left 
hand  properly  so  that  either  one  or  both  may  be 
used  at  pleasure  is  most  important.  The  reins  of 
the  curb  bit  should  be  divided  by  the  little  finger, 
the  reins  of  the  snaffle  by  the  long  finger,  the  loose 
ends  of  both  pairs  being  carried  through  the 
hand  and  held  by  the  thumb  against  the  forefin- 
ger. The  right  hand  should  be  kept  on  the  loose 
ends  of  the  reins  behind  the  left,  and  when  reins 
are  needed  to  be  shortened  the  right  hand  should 
pull  them  or  either  of  them  through  the  bridle 
hand;  but  when  the  right  hand  is  needed  in  as- 
sistance of  the  bridle  hand,  the  right  should  be 
placed  in  front  of  the  left.  The  knuckles  of  the 
bridle  rein  should  be  kept  up.  This  all  seems  sim- 
ple enough,  and  it  is  so  simple  when  learned  that 
an  experienced  rider  never  gives  it  a  thought :  but 
new  riders  some  times  find  it  hard  to  learn,  in- 
deed some  never  learn  it. 

The  beginner  should  not  use  a  spur.  Most  peo- 
ple think  a  spur  is  an  instrument  of  punishment. 
It  should  seldom  be  so  used.  It  is  merely  a  tool  to 
assist  the  rider  in  conveying  his  wishes  to  the 
horse.  But  to  an  obstinate,  pig-headed  horse  it  is 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  247 

a  reminder  that  the  rider  has  something  in  re- 
serve. The  horse,  by  the  way,  is  not  the  intellec- 
tual animal  that  some  think,  and  "horse  sense" 
ought  not  to  be  much  of  a  compliment  to  a  man. 
Seven  horses  out  of  ten  will  become  bullies,  and 
get  the  upper  hand  if  they  be  suffered  so  to  do. 
There  is  one  sense,  however,  that  even  a  bullying 
horse  always  preserves  —  he  knows  the  touch  of 
the  master  hand  and  stops  his  "monkey  shines" 
in  very  short  order.  But  there  are  other  horses  — 
crazy  horses  and  fool  horses.  The  crazy  horse  can 
be  subdued  by  the  Rarey  or  other  similar  method, 
but  for  the  fool  horse  there  is  no  hope.  He  learns 
nothing,  remembers  nothing  —  the  glue  factory 
for  him  is  the  only  proper  place. 

And  how  late  in  life  can  a  man  take  up  horse- 
back riding  ?  That  is  hard  to  say.  There  are  men 
and  men  —  some  at  forty  are  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  sixty,  while  others  at  sixty  appear  not 
over  forty.  So  long  as  a  man  retains  a  reasonable 
amount  of  suppleness  and  agility  he  is  not  too  old 
to  take  up  horseback  riding  and  get  great  plea- 
sure and  benefit  out  of  it,  while  if  he  began  as  a 
youth  and  has  kept  it  up  there  is  no  reason  why 


248  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

he  should  give  it  up  so  long  as  he  can  sit  a  horse 
and  the  exercise  is  not  too  exhausting.  Remember 
what  Lord  Palrnerston  said :  "  The  best  thing  for 
the  inside  of  a  man  is  the  outside  of  a  horse."  And 
it  is  so ;  there  is  no  exercise  that  so  aids  digestion, 
none  which  more  completely  takes  the  cobwebs 
out  of  the  brain.  A  man  who  takes  up  horseback 
riding  in  middle  life  need  not  expect  to  become  as 
accomplished  say  as  his  son  who  began  at  twelve ; 
but  if  he  will  give  his  mind  to  it  he  will  be  apt  to 
do  very  well  and  will  surely  get  from  it  both 
pleasure  and  profit.  I  know  a  lady  who  did  not 
take  up  horseback  riding  until  she  was  a  mother. 
I  have  seen  her  in  the  hunting  field  since  she  be- 
came a  grandmother  sailing  along  as  gaily  as  a 
bird,  and  even  taking  a  tumble  with  the  serene 
amiability  of  a  youth  in  small  clothes.  But  she 
has  found  the  fabled  spring. 

That  every  rider  will  sooner  or  later  have  a  fall 
is  inevitable.  Therefore  when  the  first  one  comes 
there  should  be  no  discouragement,  even  to  a 
man  of  middle  age.  Many  falls  are  prevented 
when  a  horse  stumbles  by  gathering  the  horse, 
and  assisting  him  to  regain  his  footing.  But  often, 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  249 

in  jumping  particularly,  the  fall  cannot  be  pre- 
vented. When  the  rider  feels  it  coming  the  best 
way  is  to  take  the  feet  from  the  stirrups,  tuck  in 
the  chin,  and  fall  as  much  like  a  ball  as  possible, 
holding  the  reins,  however,  until  the  feet  are 
surely  clear  of  the  stirrups.  I  was  recently 
knocked  off  my  horse  on  a  steep  hillside  path  by 
coming  in  contact  with  the  limb  of  a  tree.  I  rolled 
down  the  hillside  for  fifty  feet,  but  suffered  no  in- 
convenience though  I  weigh  175  pounds  and 
carry  an  undue  amount  of  that  weight  at  the 
middle.  Had  I  landed  on  my  head,  the  conse- 
quences would  probably  have  been  serious. 

Every  rider  should  learn  how  to  make  a  horse 
change  his  lead  in  the  gallop,  that  is,  change  the 
leading  foot  from  right  to  left  and  back  again. 
Horses  naturally  go  with  the  right  foot  in  front 
or  the  left  foot  in  front,  as  the  case  may  be,  just 
as  children  are  more  dextrous  with  the  right 
hand  or  the  left.  When  the  change  is  desired,  the 
horse  should  be  well  in  hand,  and  when  from 
right  to  left  is  required  the  right  heel  should  be 
applied  when  the  leading  foot  is  on  the  ground, 
and  the  hind  legs  are  leaving  it;  immediately 


250  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

thereafter  as  the  right  fore  foot  is  rising  the  left 
rein  should  make  a  slight  play  and  the  change  in 
lead  will  be  effected  without  a  false  step  or  dis- 
turbance in  pace.  Every  rider  should  practise 
making  figure  eights,  each  circle  being  from 
twenty  to  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  and  asking  his 
horse  to  change  the  lead  when  going  from  one 
circle  to  the  other.  In  some  show  rings  the  judges 
require  that  the  riders  do  this,  and  those  who  ac- 
complish it  easily  and  gracefully  help  their  score 
very  considerably. 

The  American  jockeys  have  developed  a  new 
method  of  race  riding,  a  kind  of  acrobatic  horse- 
manship, which  when  the  English  first  saw  it 
they  called  the  "  monkey-on-the-stick "  style. 
The  jockies  use  very  short  stirrups  and  seem  to 
throw  the  weight  even  forward  of  the  withers  so 
as  to  relieve  the  hind  legs,  where  the  propelling 
power  is,  from  as  much  weight  as  possible.  It 
seems  effective  and  has  been  almost  universally 
adopted  by  all  save  steeplechase  riders,  who  still 
use  a  stirrup  long  enough  for  both  knees  and  legs 
to  embrace  the  horse  —  or  as  Mr.  Anderson  says, 
they  still  ride  like  men. 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  251 

A  good  rider  is  apt  to  be  also  a  tolerable  driver. 
The  contrary  of  this,  however,  is  not  in  the  least 
the  case.  There  are  many  good  drivers  who  were 
never  mounted  in  their  lives.  Probably  also  there 
are  many  more  good  drivers  in  this  country  than 
good  riders.  It  is  with  us  a  more  universal  method 
of  employing  the  horse.  Notwithstanding  this, 
good  driving  is  by  no  means  universal.  Indeed  I 
doubt  whether  it  is  common.  It  seems  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  to  sit  in  a  wagon  and  pull  on 
the  right  rein  or  the  left  and  go  wheresoever  one 
chooses.  Because  it  seems  so  easy  all  kinds  and 
conditions  of  people  essay  to  drive  no  matter  how 
little  experience  they  may  have.  I  have  some- 
times been  nearly  scared  out  of  my  wits  in  driving 
with  a  man  or  woman  whose  every  act  displayed 
ignorance  of  even  first  principles.  Probably  no 
more  grievous  insult  could  be  paid  to  a  man  than 
to  betray  lack  of  confidence  in  his  capacity  to 
drive,  and  latterly  when  I  have  been  asked  to  go 
with  a  man,  even  to  the  golf  links  two  miles  away, 
when  I  knew  he  did  not  know  how  to  handle  the 
reins  or  manage  a  horse  I  have  blandly  declined. 
Death  comes  to  all  of  us,  but  there  seems  to  be 


THE     HORSE     IN    AMERICA 

lack  of  wisdom  in  seeking  it  in  such  an    ignoble 
fashion. 

The  men  who  train  trotting  horses  in  America 
are  the  most  wonderful  drivers  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  They  seem  to  get  more  speed  out  of  a  horse 
at  less  expense  than  any  others.  I  have  often 
thought  that  the  lowering  of  trotting  records  in 
America  had  been  assisted  in  a  great  degree  by 
the  increasing  skill  of  American  drivers.  How 
many  seconds  this  skill  may  be  responsible  for  I 
have  no  idea  —  maybe  one  second,  maybe  five  or 
ten.  But  their  patience  in  developing  the  horse 
and  their  skill  in  driving  is  responsible  for  a  good 
deal.  I  have  often  watched  the  trotters  on  the 
Speedway  in  New  York,  and  many  a  time  I  have 
seen  contests  which  I  was  sure  would  have  been 
reversed  had  the  drivers  been  changed.  No  doubt 
some  men  have  an  aptness  for  driving,  just  as 
others  have  an  aptness  for  riding;  but  driving  is 
also  an  art  which  can  be  acquired  only  by  in- 
struction, imitation,  and  practice  together  with  a 
knowledge  of  and  consideration  for  horses.  There 
are  so  many  things  that  a  man  must  know  to 
make  him  a  good  driver  that  it  would  take  a  book 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  253 

by  itself  in  which  to  set  down  the  rules.  I  shall 
not  make  such  an  essay,  but  content  myself  with 
a  few  fundamental  principles. 

The  first  that  I  shall  mention  may  seem  trifling 
but  is  really  of  much  importance.  It  matters  not 
so  much  what  kind  of  coat  a  driver  may  wear,  but 
he  must  have  a  hat  that  fits  so  well  that  it  will  not 
be  blown  off  even  in  a  gale.  Many  awkward  hap- 
penings have  resulted  from  a  driver's  efforts  to 
secure  his  hat  at  a  moment  when  all  his  attention 
was  needed  by  his  horse  or  horses.  He  should  also 
have  proper  gloves.  They  should  be  loose  enough 
to  enable  him  free  use  of  his  fingers,  and  indeed 
of  all  of  his  hands,  but  not  so  loose  that  they  will 
slip  off  while  he  is  driving.  A  size  larger  than  his 
dress  gloves  would,  I  should  say,  be  about  the 
right  thing.  They  should  also  be  heavy  enough  to 
prevent  the  reins  from  hurting  his  hands.  Dog- 
skin is  probably  the  best  material. 

Then  he  should,  even  in  a  runabout,  be,  at 
least,  above  his  horse.  This  is  regulated  by  a 
driver's  cushion  with  a  slant,  the  back  being 
about  three  inches  above  the  front.  His  feet 
should  not  be  sprawled  out  against  the  dash- 


254  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

board,  nor  yet  tucked  awkwardly  underneath 
him.  Indeed  with  a  driver's  cushion  either  atti- 
tude would  be  uncomfortable  if  not  impossible. 
What  he  should  seek  for  is  a  position  in  which  he 
is  at  ease  in  all  his  movements  for  a  driver  has  to 
drive  all  the  time,  at  every  moment  from  the 
starting  out  until  he  sets  foot  on  the  ground  and 
turns  over  his  horse  to  the  groom.  It  is  careless- 
ness in  driving  that  causes  nearly  all  the  acci- 
dents, for  it  is  the  unexpected  that  is  always  hap- 
pening. 

One  should  always  drive  with  the  left  hand, 
using  the  right  to  hold  the  whip  and  give  assist- 
ance to  the  left  when  it  is  required  to  shorten  the 
rein.  A  good  mouth  is  just  as  excellent  in  a  driv- 
ing horse  as  in  a  saddle-horse.  The  mouth  should 
be  like  velvet,  and  at  all  times  responsive  to  the 
telegraphic  signal  from  the  hands  of  the  driver. 
To  drive  with  a  slack  rein  makes  a  horse  slouchy 
even  when  a  check  is  used.  To  pull  on  a  horse 
hardens  his  mouth  and  lessens  the  control  of  the 
driver.  Nothing  is  more  unpleasant  than  a  pulling 
horse.  It  is  as  fatiguing  in  harness  as  in  the  sad- 
dle* And  a  puller  is  the  easiest  thing  to  accom- 


RIDING    AND    DRIVING  255 

plish.  When  it  has  been  accomplished  the  driver 
does  as  much  work  as  the  horse.  To  smack  a 
horse  with  the  reins  instead  of  using  the  whip 
may  be  well  enough  for  old  Dobbin  on  the  farm, 
but  it  is  a  silly  habit  which  hurts  the  horse,  with- 
out being  effective  for  the  purpose  intended, 
while  it  proves  the  driver  to  have  no  knowledge 
of  the  business.  Jerking  on  the  reins,  or  rather 
giving  a  pull  and  then  letting  them  loose  to  make 
a  horse  quicken  his  gait  is  unworthy  even  of  a 
peddler  or  a  city  huckster. 

Keep  your  eye  on  your  horse.  That  is  the  most 
important  thing  in  driving.  The  driver  is  in  com- 
mand, and  it  is  the  horse's  part  to  obey.  This  may 
seem  an  unnecessary  thing  when  jogging  along 
on  a  long  clear  road.  But  we  should  not  jog  along. 
A  brisk  pace  is  the  proper  pace  to  drive  at,  and  if 
the  road  be  very  long  a  rest  can  be  taken  and  no 
time  b£  lost,  while  if  the  journey  be  only  seven  or 
eight  miles  the  brisk  pace  reduces  the  time,  and 
the  horse  is  sooner  in  the  stable  and  at  rest.  Pok- 
ing along  at  a  jog  will  in  time  ruin  any  horse.  It 
will  spoil  his  style,  detract  from  his  speed,  and 
take  away  his  spirit.  When  a  horse  is  taken  along 


256  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

briskly,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  keep  him  al- 
ways well  in  hand  —  not  a  pulling  on  the  bit,  but 
a  feeling  of  the  bit  so  that  the  horse  will  know 
every  instant  of  the  time  that  he  is  being  driven 
by  one  who  is  master. 

A  driver  should  keep  in  communion  with  his 
horse.  A  horse  has  a  keen  sense  of  hearing  and  a 
good  memory  for  a  voice.  The  master  should 
have  his  horse  well  acquainted  with  his  voice. 
But  he  should  not  do  too  much  talking  or  chir- 
ruping when  other  horses  are  about.  That  is  a 
discourtesy  to  other  drivers  whose  horses  may  be 
fretted  and  made  restless  when  it  is  meant  that 
they  should  stand  still.  The  disregard  of  this  is 
not  only  annoying  but  has  been  the  cause  of  many 
accidents  at  crowded  railway  stations,  where 
many  traps  are  waiting  for  the  home-comers. 

As  to  the  method  of  holding  the  reins  Mr.  Price 
Collier,  a  most  accomplished  horseman  and 
charming  writer  on  driving  says:  "The  reins 
should  be  held  with  the  near  rein  between  the 
thumb  and  first  finger,  the  off-rein  between  the 
third  and  fourth  fingers.  Hold  your  hand  so  that 
your  knuckles,  turned  towards  your  horse,  and 


RIDING    AND    DRIVING  257 

the  buttons  on  your  waistcoat,  will  make  two  par- 
allel lines  up  and  down  with  the  hand  three  or 
four  inches  from  the  body.  The  reins  should  be 
clasped,  or  held  by  the  two  lower,  or  fourth  and 
fifth  fingers;  the  second  finger  should  point 
straight  across  and  upward  enough  to  keep  the 
near  rein  over  the  knuckle  of  that  finger  and  the 
thumb  pointing  in  the  same  direction,  but  not  so 
much  upward.  The  reins  are  held  not  by  squeez- 
ing them  on  their  flat  surfaces,  but  by  pressure  on 
their  edges.  The  edges,  in  a  word,  being  held  be- 
tween the  two  last  fingers  and  the  root  of  the 
thumb.  This  arrangement  makes  a  flexible  joint 
of  the  wrist,  for  the  reins  and  for  the  bit  to  play 
upon.  This  suppleness  of  wrist,  just  enough  and 
not  too  much,  is  what  is  called  '  hands/  It  means 
that  your  wrist  gives  just  enough  play  to  the 
horse's  mouth  to  enable  him  to  feel  your  influ- 
ence, without  being  either  confused  or  hampered 
by  it.  As  this  is  the  key  to  perfection  in  all  driv- 
ing, everybody  claims  to  possess  it;  only  the  elect 
few  have  it." 

In  leaving  the  stable  or  starting  out  from  any 
other  place,  you  should  go  quietly.  Nothing  is 


£58  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

more  vulgar  than  to  rush  off  with  the  idea  of 
"  cutting  a  dash."  It  does  not  give  the  horse  a  fair 
show,  and  driver  and  horse  are  not  yet  in  good 
adjustment.  And  in  stopping  also  it  is  vulgar  to 
rush  to  the  stopping  place  and  throw  the  horse  on 
his  haunches  by  a  quick  pull.  Neither  of  these 
things  is  done  by  good  drivers,  but  is  the  practice 
of  either  the  ignorant  or  vulgar  who  wish  to  at- 
tract attention  to  themselves  at  places  where 
there  are  likely  to  be  spectators. 

I  have  often  heard  it  said  that  two  horses  were 
easier  to  drive  than  one.  I  always  marked  down 
the  person  who  made  such  a  remark  as  not  being 
thoroughly  in  earnest,  or  not  knowing  the  subject 
he  was  discussing.  I  do  not  know  how  much  hard- 
er it  is  to  drive  two  horses  than  one.  That  is  I  can- 
not express  the  difference  mathematically.  But 
there  is  a  good  deal  Any  reasonably  strong  man 
can  prevent  one  horse  from  getting  away  with 
him.  Few  can  prevent  a  thoroughly  frightened 
team  if  they  once  get  off.  The  thing  is  not  to  let 
them  get  off.  Not  to  permit  this  requires  that  he 
shall  control  two  animals,  for  when  one  of  a  pair 
gets  frightened  he  quickly  communicates  his 


RIDING    AND     DRIVING  259 

fear  to  his  mate.  When  the  panic  is  serious  then 
serious  trouble  is  likely  to  ensue.  With  a  runaway 
horse  or  a  runaway  pair  the  circumstances  of  the 
moment  must  control.  If  the  road  is  clear  and  the 
driver  can  keep  the  horse  straight  all  may  go 
well;  but  horses  nearly  always  choose  to  get 
frightened  when  the  conditions  are  nearly  the 
opposite  of  this.  Then  the  circumstances  of  the 
moment  must  guide  the  driver.  If  he  keeps  his 
head  cool  and  can  prevent  collisions,  he  will  prob- 
ably come  out  safely.  But  the  best  of  them  have 
been  run  away  with.  This  comes  sooner  or  later 
to  every  man  who  uses  horses  constantly.  Eternal 
vigilance  will  prevent  most  all  of  the  accidents 
that  might  happen;  but  human  nature  is  fallible 
and  horses  are  very  uncertain.  Carelessness  in  the 
driver,  however,  is  responsible  for  ninety  and 
nine  of  every  hundred  driving  accidents  that 
happen.  The  flying  automobile,  in  recent  years, 
has  been  responsible  for  a  great  many.  I  must  say, 
however,  that  I  never  met  but  once  with  anything 
but  the  greatest  consideration  from  automobilists 
that  I  have  encountered  when  driving.  The 
discourteous  one  proved  to  be  a  dentist,  and 


260  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

the  mission  of  dentists  in  the  world  is,  I  believe, 
to  give  people  pain. 

Every  driver  should  know  when  his  horses  are 
properly  harnessed  and  hitched  to  the  vehicle. 
And  he  should  never  fail  to  look  over  the  whole 
"turn  out"  in  every  detail  to  see  that  all  is  secure 
and  each  part  in  proper  adjustment  to  every 
other  part.  The  horse  show  authorities  have  for- 
mulated rules  as  to  what  is  proper  for  one  vehicle 
and  another.  The  experts  are  veritable  martinets 
and  attach  as  much  importance  to  a  strap  here  and 
a  buckle  there  as  the  unlucky  King  of  Prussia, 
who  did  battle  with  Napoleon,  attached  to  one 
row  or  two  rows  of  buttons  on  a  soldier's  coat. 
Intelligence,  however,  can  find  its  way  without 
much  regard  to  these  fine  points.  But  it  is  never 
safe  to  trust  to  grooms  and  stablemen  even 
though  they  may  really  know  more  about  it  than 
the  driver  himself.  The  driver  is  the  master,  and 
he  should  make  the  inspection  even  though  it  be 
only  a  formal  one  —  he  should  assume  a  virtue 
though  he  has  it  not.  Inspections  of  the  work  of 
stablemen  do  not  go  amiss  unless  the  unlucky 
master  should  take  to  finding  mares'  nests.  Two 


RIDING    AND    DRIVING  261 

or  three   such   discoveries   will   hurt   discipline 
amazingly. 

There  is  now  a  good  deal  of  four-in-hand  driv- 
ing in  America.  It  is  only  now  pleasure  driving, 
and  quite  different  from  that  of  the  coaching 
days  of  our  grandfathers'  time.  This  is  an  art 
which  a  man  may  be  able  to  pick  up  himself.  But 
the  safest  and  quickest  course  is  to  take  instruc^ 
tion  from  a  professional  or  from  a  friend,  if  so 
amiable  a  friend  can  be  found.  It  is,  of  course, 
more  difficult  to  drive  four  than  two  horses.  But 
this  can  be  learned  by  any  cool-headed  man  who 
has  the  good  fortune  to  be  a  horseman  to  start 
out  with.  Not  having  that  gift  he  would  do  well  to 
let  it  alone.  Some  of  the  most  accomplished  four^ 
in-hand  drivers  about  New  York  are  women, 
which  shows  that  it  is  not  main  strength  that  is 
effective,  but  skill  and  practice.  Practice  and  in- 
telligence combined  will  overcome  most  all  of  the 
difficulties.  By  practice  I  do  not  mean  an  hour  a 
day  for  a  couple  of  weeks,  but  six  hours  a  day  for 
two  or  three  years;  and  by  intelligence  I  mean 
the  instructed  knowledge  which  enables  a  driver 
to  know  the  reason  for  each  thing  that  is  done. 


CHAPTER  FIFTEEN 
TRAINING    VS.     BREAKING 

As  has  been  frequently  remarked  before  in  this 
volume,  the  horse  is  not  a  very  intelligent  animal. 
Nor  has  he  any  of  that  natural  affection  and 
fidelity  that  is  so  remarkable  in  the  dog.  This  be- 
ing the  case  —  and  it  is  so  no  matter  what  the 
sentimentalists  who  know  nothing  about  the  sub- 
ject may  say  —  the  training  of  a  young  horse  is  a 
thing  requiring  much  patient  intelligence  on  the 
part  of  the  person  who  undertakes  the  job.  But 
this  patience  is  rewarded  if  the  young  horse  have 
qualities  that  are  worthy  of  development.  I  fancy 
that  seven  horses  out  of  ten  in  the  United  States 
are  broken  before  their  training  begins.  This 
means,  in  my  opinion,  that  a  large  percentage  of 
a  horse's  value  is  deliberately  thrown  away  in 
the  very  beginning  of  his  career  of  usefulness. 
A  horse  broken  is  a  horse  half  spoiled.  The 

262 


TRAINING    VS.     BREAKING  263 

"Broncho  Buster"  is  the  typical  horse  breaker. 
Those  who  have  not  been  on  the  frontier  have 
seen  the  Broncho  Buster's  methods  in  the  Wild 
West  circuses.  A  young  horse  or  a  wild  horse  is 
saddled  and  bridled.  A  Rough  Rider  mounts 
and  stays  on  the  back  of  the  young  thing  until  the 
animal  is  conquered  and  subdued  through  fear 
and  fatigue.  This  brutal  method  of  treating 
young  horses  used  to  be  universal  in  America. 
That  so  much  of  it  should  still  be  done  is  not 
complimentary  to  the  intelligence  and  kindli- 
ness of  American  horse  owners.  It  is  about  on 
a  par  with  the  treatment  that  weak-minded 
persons  received  a  century  or  so  ago.  They 
were  beaten  and  maltreated  and  kept  in  order 
by  cruelty  and  harshness  —  ruled,  indeed,  by 
the  fear  of  those  who  should  have  treated 
them  with  the  most  patient  kindness. 
the  spirit  is  taken  out  of  a  horse  by  his  early 
handling,  we  can  never  hope  to  develop  his  small 
intelligence  very  far,  or  to  guide  his  instincts  in 
the  right  direction.  While  a  horse's  intelligence 
is  of  a  low  order,  he  has  a  fine  memory.  His 
fear  being  aroused  in  the  beginning,  he  remains 


264  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

afraid,  and  is  controlled  by  his  fear  alone  —  his 
fear  of  being  hurt.  This  always  seemed  to  me  a 
cowardly  way  of  acting,  for  the  horse  is  one  of  the 
most  timid  of  all  animals.  To  beat  a  horse  is 
about  as  noble  as  to  beat  a  child. 

The  breeders  of  good  horses  are  pretty  gen- 
erally giving  up  the  rough  methods  of  breaking. 
Their  horses  are  too  valuable  to  be  trifled  with  in 
this  way.  There  are  some  horses  that  are  natu- 
rally vicious.  With  them  the  gentle  method  will 
not  accomplish  the  desired  result.  They  have  to  be 
conquered  in  another  way.  When  this  is  the  case, 
I  much  prefer  the  Rarey  method.  Rarey  so  fash- 
ioned a  harness  that  he  could  cast  a  horse  the 
moment  that  a  horse  disobeyed.  After  a  horse  has 
been  thrown  a  few  times  he  usually  comes  to  the 
conclusion  that  obedience  is  the  safer  plan.  There 
is  nothing  cruel  in  the  Rarey  method  and  with 
bad  horses  it  is  much  to  be  preferred  to  the  brutal 
breaking  style.  The  horse  is  not  hurt,  he  is  merely 
surprised  at  the  result  of  his  own  waywardness. 

The  Arabs  handle  their  horses  from  the  time 
they  are  foaled,  so  that  they  are  from  the  begin- 
ning accustomed  to  men,  women  and  children 


TRAINING    VS.     BREAKING  265 

and  all  the  other  things  common  to  a  human  habi- 
tation. That  is  the  way  all  young  horses  should 
be  treated.  To  be  sure  this  involves  a  good  deal  of 
work  and  many  think  that  it  does  not  pay,  so  they 
turn  their  colts  out  and  let  them  get  two  or  three 
years  old  before  anything  is  done  with  them.  This 
is  as  wise  as  to  let  a  boy  run  wild  and  uninstruct- 
ed  until  a  year  or  so  before  he  is  bidden  to  go 
forth  and  earn  his  own  living.  When  a  colt  is  ac- 
customed to  persons  and  not  afraid  of  being 
touched  or  led,  only  patience  and  intelligence  is 
required  to  complete  his  education  without  any 
fight  or  contest  whatever. 

Before  the  colt  is  a  year  old  it  should  be  ac- 
customed to  the  cavesson  while  running  in  a  pad- 
dock, and  when  a  year  old  it  should  be  practised 
on  the  lunge,  a  rein  of  fifteen  feet  long  attached 
to  the  nose-piece  of  the  cavesson.  This  is  a  head- 
collar.with  a  metal  nose-band,  upon  the  front  and 
each  side  of  which  are  rings.  To  the  front  ring  the 
leather  lunge  is  fastened  and  from  the  side  rings 
straps  will  be  buckled  to  a  surcingle  or  girth  at 
such  lengths  as  will  prevent  the  colt  from  ex- 
tending the  face  much  beyond  the  perpendicular. 


266  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

The  colt  should  then  be  led  about,  stopping  and 
starting,  time  and  time  again  until  it  has  some 
comprehension  of  the  word  of  command.  The  feet 
should  be  lifted  so  that  the  colt  realizes  that  the 
trainer  has  no  intention  to  do  him  harm.  After 
good  terms  have  been  established  the  colt  should 
be  practised  on  the  lunge,  the  trainer  standing  in 
the  center  of  a  circle,  and  letting  the  colt  walk  first 
and  then  trot  slowly  around  the  circumference  of 
the  circle  —  first  to  the  right,  then  to  the  left. 
These  short  lessons  should  be  given  every  day. 
Soon  a  colt  enjoys  the  exercise,  evidently  think- 
ing it  play.  If  it  be  a  driving  horse  that  is 
being  trained,  harness  should  soon  be  added  so 
that  the  colt  will  not  be  afraid  of  it,  and  also  a 
light  bridle  with  a  snaffle-bit  or,  better  still,  a 
leather  bit.  If  it  be  a  saddle-horse  that  is  being 
trained,  the  lunging  and  bitting  should  continue 

until  the  colt  is  passed  two  years  old  before  he  is 
saddled  or  mounted. 

Suppose  we  take  the  saddle-horse  first.  Two- 
year-old  colts  are  often  trained  by  light  weight 
riders.  At  three  their  serious  education  is  contin- 
ued, and  at  four  they  are  given  their  accomplish- 


TRAINING    VS.     BREAKING  267 

ments.  The  colt,  after  being  practised  on  the 
lunge,  should  be  taught  somewhat  the  meaning 
and  the  purpose  of  the  bit  before  he  is  mounted. 
Patience  and  gentleness  to  the  end  that  fear  may 
be  banished  will  enable  a  trainer  to  get  a  colt  into 
such  an  acquiescent  condition  that  when  the  rider 
finally  gets  into  the  saddle  the  colt  accepts  the  in- 
novation with  nothing  exceeding  a  mild  surprise. 
The  saddle  should  be  used  in  the  lunge  exercise 
several  times  before  a  man  mounts.  Some  recom- 
mend that  a  weight,  such  as  a  bag  of  meal,  be  tied 
into  the  saddle  towards  the  end  of  the  lunge  ex- 
ercises so  that  the  colt  will  get  used  to  weight  on 
the  back.  This  is  not  a  bad  idea.  Before  the  rider 
mounts  the  first  time,  the  stirrups  should  be  pulled 
down  and  pressure  be  put  upon  them  so  that  the 
colt  may  feel  the  weight  of  the  saddle.  When  the 
foot  of  the  rider  is  first  put  into  the  stirrup  he 
should  raise  himself  very  gently,  the  left  hand 
being  in  the  mane  of  the  colt.  After  bearing  all  his 
weight  a  few  seconds  in  the  stirrup  he  should  re- 
turn to  the  ground  without  taking  his  seat  in  the 
saddle.  This  he  should  repeat  several  times,  the 
number  of  times  depending  upon  how  the  colt 


268  THE     HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

acts.  At  any  rate,  this  half -mounting  should  be 
continued  until  the  colt  is  no  longer  disturbed  by 
it.  Then  the  rider  may  take  his  seat  in  the  saddle. 
This  should  be  done  as  quietly  as  possible.  He 
should  sit  in  the  saddle  a  few  minutes  and  then 
dismount.  The  mounting  and  dismounting  should 
continue  until  the  colt  is  accustomed  to  it.  This 
will  not  be  long  if  everything  be  done  easily, 
slowly  and  gently.  An  awkward  man  has  no  busi- 
ness in  trying  to  train  a  saddle-horse.  A  flop  into 
the  saddle  would,  naturally,  frighten  a  colt  and 
defeat  the  purpose  in  view.  When  the  colt  has  be- 
come used  to  a  rider  in  the  saddle  the  rider  should 
close  his  legs  against  the  sides  of  the  colt,  draw  a 
slight  tension  on  the  reins,  and  induce  the  colt  to 
go  forward  in  a  walk.  There  should  be  nothing 
but  the  walk  in  the  first  few  lessons.  In  them, 
however,  the  colt  should  be  taught  the  meaning  of 
the  bit  so  that  he  could  be  guided  in  whatever 
direction  the  rider  wishes.  In  nine  times  out  of  ten 
a  colt  that  has  been  treated  as  I  have  described  will 
be  quiet  and  do  what  is  asked  of  him  without 
any  excitement.  If  the  colt  does  get  excited  then 
the  whole  work  will  have  to  be  done  over  and 


TRAINING    VS.     BREAKING  269 

over,  with  more  patience  and  more  gentleness, 
until  the  colt  acquiesces.  It  is  most  important 
that  all  these  first  steps  be  taken  quite  slowly, 
otherwise  the  colt  will  get  hot  and  excited,  and 
then  may  come  a  fight  which  is  the  thing  most 
to  be  avoided.  I  can  see  a  rough  rider  turning  up 
a  scornful  nose  at  these  admonitions.  Very  well! 
Be  scornful  as  much  as  you  choose,  I  am  not 
writing  about  the  training  of  a  broncho,  but  of  a 
horse  fit  for  a  gentleman  to  ride. 

After  the  mounted  colt  goes  quietly  in  the  walk, 
then  he  should  be  trotted  gently,  and  if  the  rider 
is  a  light  weight,  cantered,  too.  But  as  a  two-year- 
old  work  should  be  very  light  —  play,  indeed.  At 
three  years  old  the  colt  may  be  confirmed  in  his 
gaits,  but  not  worked  a  great  deal  harder  than  at 
two.  At  four  years  old  the  colt  is  ready  for  the  fin- 
ishing touches  and  the  beginning  of  his  life  work. 
But  he  is  not  nearly  up  to  the  hard  work  of  which 
he  should  be  capable  between  six  and  sixteen. 

Trainers  of  colts  for  driving  hitch  them  up 
when  they  are  yearlings,  and  drive  them  a  little 
to  a  low  cart  built  with  long  shafts  and  running 
out  behind.  Before  being  hitched  up,  however,  he 


270  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

is  harnessed  and  driven  around  with  a  pair  of 
long  reins,  being  guided  by  the  driver  to  one  way 
and  another,  and  being  stopped  and  started  at 
the  word  of  command.  When  the  colt  is  harnessed 
to  the  cart  a  strong  kicking  strap  should  be  used. 
A  few  lessons  a  week  driven  in  such  a  cart  will 
work  wonders  so  that  when  the  colt  is  two  years 
old  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  driving  him  in  an 
ordinary  road  cart.  In  driving  a  colt  the  same  pre- 
cautions should  be  used  as  in  training  a  colt  for 
the  saddle  —  it  should  not  be  frightened  or 
treated  roughly. 

It  is  probably  more  important  to  accustom  a 
young  driving  horse  than  a  riding  horse  to  the 
sights  and  sounds  that  are  likely  to  be  encount- 
ered on  the  road.  Here,  too,  patience  and  gentle 
firmness  are  amply  rewarded.  Whenever  I  see  a 
driver  thrashing  a  young  horse  to  compel  him  to 
go  by  an  automobile  or  a  trolley  car  or  some 
other  strange  and  fearsome  thing,  I  have  a  desire 
to  get  the  whip  and  apply  it  to  the  driver.  Such 
treatment  of  a  horse  is  not  only  cruel,  but  it  is 
utterly  foolish.  The  horse  is  frightened  at  what 
he  sees.  He  is  afraid  that  in  some  way  it  will  hurt 


TRAINING    VS.     BREAKING  271 

him.  And  why  should  he  not  be?  These  devil 
wagons  are  frightful  enough  in  appearance  to 
scare  a  less  timid  animal  than  a  horse.  There 
is  only  one  course  to  pursue.  Teach  the  horse 
that  the  automobile  or  other  frightful  machine 
will  not  hurt  him.  Do  this,  not  with  the  whip, 
not  with  shouts  and  execrations,  but  by  leading 
the  horse  up  to  the  offending  machine  until  he 
realizes  that  it  is  not  some  monster  of  destruc- 
tion. Patience  and  sense  will  prevent  almost  any 
horse  from  acquiring  bad  and  dangerous  habits 
of  shying  and  bolting.  Curing  a  horse  of  estab- 
lished habits  is  quite  another  and  a  different 
thing.  It  is  like  reforming  the  dissolute  or  re- 
generating the  depraved.  The  horse,  however, 
is  not  blameworthy.  These  bad  habits  are  always 
the  result  of  foolishness  on  the  part  of  some 
man.  The  sensible  course  is  not  to  permit  a 
horse  to  acquire  bad  habits.  This  is  a  thousand 
times  easier  than  curing  them.  Patient  firmness 
and  gentle  insistence  will  prevent  bad  habits  in 
all  save  those  that  are  fools.  A  fool  horse  is  too 
worthless  to  bother  about. 


CHAPTER  SIXTEEN 

CONFORMATION    AND    ACTION 

IN  the  horse  shows  an  exhibitor,  except  in  the 
Thoroughbred  classes,  is  not  required  to  furnish 
the  pedigrees  of  his  horses.  The  judges,  therefore, 
decide  entirely  on  conformation  and  action. 
These  two  things  are  what  make  or  unmake  the 
excellence  of  the  individual  animal.  A  well- 
formed  horse  is  apt  to  have  good  action.  Some- 
times this  is  not  so,  just  as  sometimes  a  woman 
may  have  beauty  of  form  and  feature  and  lack 
animation,  vivacity,  and  that  infinite  variety  and 
sympathy  which  recently  we  have  accustomed 
ourselves  to  call  temperament.  Good  conforma- 
tion in  a  horse,  however,  is  the  advantage  which 
conduces  to  good  action.  When  action  and  con- 
formation supplement,  adjust,  and  confirm  each 
the  other,  we  have  what  may  be  called  an  approach 
to  the  ideal  horse.  I  have  never  seen  the  ideal  horse ; 

272 


CONFORMATION    AND    ACTION  273 

but  pretty  close  to  it.  I  have  owned  a  few  that  were 
very  satisfactory,  but  never  one  that  was  entirely 
so.  Still  I  have  hope.  I  suspect  that  when  one  re- 
alizes his  ideal  in  anything,  life  loses  some  of  its 
zest.  The  pursuit,  the  seeking,  the  longing  for  the 
unattained  —  these  are  the  things  that  make  life 
so  interesting,  so  absorbing.  If  I  had  the  horse  I 
have  long  had  in  my  mind  I  should  be  glad,  no 
doubt.  But  I  might  be  sorry,  too.  There  is  one 
saving  fact,  however.  We  change  our  ideals  as  we 
get  more  experience  and  further  knowledge.  I 
have  changed  my  opinions  often  about  horses, 
since  I  first  became  interested  in  them.  While 
writing  the  last  chapter  of  this  book  I  confess  that 
I  have  changed  some  of  my  opinions  during  the 
two  or  three  months  that  I  have  been  engaged  in 
the  composition.  I  have  learned  some  things  that 
I  did  not  know  before ;  I  have  parted  with  some 
prejudices  which  I  ought  never  to  have  entertain- 
ed. So  it  was  inevitable  that  I  should  modify  my 
views.  If,  therefore,  I  should  ever  obtain  my  ideal 
in  horse-flesh  I  might  awaken  a  few  weeks  later  to 
find  that  I  really  wanted  something  just  a  little 
different.  I  seek  the  ideal,  therefore,  without  fear 


274  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

of  achieving  it  and  meanwhile  I  have  lots  of  fun 
with  horses  that  are  not  more  than  half  what 
they  ought  to  be. 

The  oldest  writer  on  horses  was  Xenophon.  He 
says:  "The  neck  should  not  be  thrown  out  from 
the  chest  like  a  boar's,  but  like  a  cock's,  should 
rise  straight  up  to  the  poll,  and  be  slim  at  the 
bend,  while  the  head,  though  bony,  should  have 
but  a  small  jaw.  The  neck  would  then  protect  the 
rider,  and  the  eye  see  what  lies  before  the  feet. " 

Xenophon  is  the  oldest  writer  on  the  subject. 
Mr.  Price  Collier  is  the  latest  and  in  many  re- 
gards the  best,  because  he  not  only  knows  how  to 
write,  but  knows  what  he  is  writing  about.  Here 
is  what  he  says  about  the  proportions  of  a  well- 
formed  horse : 

"One  cannot  go  to  buy  a  horse  with  a  tape- 
measure,  but  certain  proportions  are  well  enough 
to  keep  in  mind.  The  length  of  the  head  of  a  well- 
proportioned  horse  is  almost  equal  to  the  dis- 
tance; (1)  from  the  top  of  the  withers  to  the  point 
of  the  shoulder;  (2)  from  the  lowest  point  of  the 
back  to  the  abdomen;  (3)  from  the  point  of  the 
stifle  to  the  point  of  the  hock;  (4)  from  the  point 


CONFORMATION    AND     ACTION  275 

of  the  hock  to  the  lower  level  of  the  hoof;  (5) 
from  the  shoulder  blades  to  the  point  of  the 
haunch.  Two  and  a  half  times  the  length  of  the 
head  gives:  (1)  the  height  of  the  withers  and  the 
height  of  the  croup  above  the  ground, 
and  (2)  very  nearly  the  length  from  the 
point  of  the  shoulder  to  the  extreme  of  the 
buttock. " 

The  tape-measure  test  is  all  very  well,  but  if  a 
man  does  not  have  an  eye  for  a  horse  he  will 
never  be  able  to  select  a  good  one  by  mathe- 
matics. And  an  eye  for  a  horse  is  a  singular  en- 
dowment. I  have  known  men  of  proved  intellec- 
tuality quite  incapable  of  learning  about  horses. 
Also  I  have  known  men  who,  in  the  ordinary  af- 
fairs of  life  were  very  fools  but  who  knew  good 
horses  by  a  kind  of  instinct.  The  man  with  an  eye 
for  a  horse  takes  the  whole  animal  in  at  a  glance ; 
his  .minute  examination,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
only  confirms  his  instant  judgment.  When  I  am 
buying  a  horse  I  do  not  need  to  hesitate  very  long. 
I  have  inspected  and  bought  as  many  as  twenty 
in  a  day,  giving  not  more  than  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes  to  each  horse.  Yet  these  purchases  in  the 


276  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

main  have  been  satisfactory.  No  one  of  them, 
however,  was  my  ideal. 

In  a  general  way,  all  horses  should  have  cer- 
tain points.  Therefore  general  rules  apply  in  all 
the  types,  from  the  Pony  to  the  Percheron.  Every 
horse  should  have  (1)  a  bony  head  and  small 
ears;  (2)  medium-sized  eyes,  neither  protruding 
nor  sunken,  and  without  an  excess  of  white  in  the 
pupil;  (3)  the  forehead  should  be  broad;  (4)  the 
face  should  be  straight  and  neither  concave  nor 
convex;  (5)  the  neck  should  be  small  and  lean,  its 
length  regulated  by  the  size  of  the  head  and  the 
weight  of  the  shoulders,  the  head  being  so  joined 
to  the  neck  that  the  neck  seems  to  control  the 
head  instead  of  the  reverse;  (6)  the  shoulders 
should  be  oblique  or  sloping;  (7)  the  back  should 
be  short;  (8)  the  ribs  should  be  well  rounded, 
definitely  separated  and  full  of  length;  (9)  the 
legs  should  be  flat  and  lean,  with  knees  wide 
from  side  to  side  and  flat  in  front,  the  upper  bone 
of  the  leg  being  long  and  muscular  in  proportion 
to  the  lower  or  the  common  bone;  (10)  the  feet 
should  be  moderately  large;  (11)  the  pasterns 
should  be  long  rather  than  short,  but,  better  still, 


CONFORMATION    AND    ACTION  277 

neither  long  nor  short;  (12)  the  hair  should  be 
short  and  fine. 

I  might  have  added  another  point,  making 
thirteen  in  all,  but  for  luck  I  stop  at  the  dozen, 
feeling  sure  that  if  any  of  my  readers  gets  a  horse 
with  the  good  points  noted  he  will  have  a  treas- 
ure beyond  the  lot  of  most  men  and  maybe  far 
beyond  his  deserts. 

A  well-formed  horse  ought  to  have  good  ac- 
tion. This  does  not  always  follow.  But  good  con- 
formation without  good  action  is  a  kind  of  dis- 
appointing fraud.  The  best  action  is  that  which  is 
natural  to  the  horse.  We  expect  this  in  families 
and  in  types.  But  training  can  modify  the  action 
of  a  horse,  indeed,  change  it  entirely  as  when  a 
pacer  is  converted  into  a  trotter.  With  pacers, 
however,  I  am  not  concerned  as  I  presume  that 
this  book  is  written  for  gentlemen. 

There  can  be  no  good  action  which  is  not 
straight.  In  the  walk,  the  trot  and  the  gallop  a 
horse  must  move  his  feet  and  legs  in  parallel 
lines.  The  horse  that  does  that  naturally  can  be; 
taught  the  other  things  that  may  not  come  to  him 
by  nature  —  high  stepping,  for  instance.  When 


278  THE    HORSE    IN    AMERICA 

a  horse  moves  always  without  paddling  or  any 
other  lateral  motion,  he  is  a  very  fit  subject  for 
cultivation.  He  can  be  taught  to  go  daintily  and 
gracefully  as  our  grandmothers  walked  through 
the  minuet  de  la  couer.  Throwing  the  feet  far  out  in 
front  or  lunging,  as  it  is  called,  is  a  very  ugly  trick 
and  can  be  remedied  in  the  shoeing,  I  am  told.  I 
believe  this  to  be  true,  but  I  have  never  tried  it. 
A  horse  with  this  inclination  always  seemed  to 
me  badly  bred  —  Hambletonian,  for  instance  — 
and  I  have  not  recently  bothered  with  such.  Pad- 
dling also  can  often  be  corrected  by  shoeing. 
General  rules  cannot  be  laid  down  as  to  these 
things.  Each  horse  has  his  individuality.  He  must 
be  so  studied.  When  an  owner  brings  general 
knowledge  and  acute  intelligence  to  this  study  he 
can  determine  in  a  little  while  what  is  best  to  be 
done  in  each  case.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases 
the  best  plan  is  to  sell  the  horse  that  seems  un- 
promising, but  as  no  horse  is  ever  entirely  satis- 
factory some  of  them  must  be  retained  and  edu- 
cated by  training,  a  training  dominated  by  gentle- 
ness, courage,  firmness  and  patience  —  but  most 
of  all  patience. 

THE  END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ABDUL  AZEEZ,  SULTAN  OP  TUR- 
KEY, 31 

ABD-EL-KADER,  18,  23 

ABDALLAH,  116,  128 

ABRAHAM,  18,  19 

ABDALLAH,  XV,  175 

ABDUL  HAMID  II,  146 

ACTION  AND  CONFORMATION,  272 

AGRICULTURAL  DEPARTMENT,  111 

ALASKER  TURK,  25 

ALEXANDER,  ROBERT  A.,  54,  55 

ALEX,  132 

ALEXANDER'S  ABDALLAH,  171 

AMAZONIA,  116 

AMERICAN  STUD  BOOK,  41 

ANDREW  JACKSON,  86,  104,  136 

ANCIENT  SCULPTURES,  6,  7 

ANDERSON,  EDWARD  L.,  6,  235, 
250 

ANDALUSIAN  (JACK),  198 

ARMENIA,  6,  20 

ARAB  AND  BARB,  vi,  vii,  14, 15 

ARISTIDES,  70 

ARION,  134 

ASIA,  6 

AUTOMOBILES      AND      ELECTRIC 
TRAMWAYS,  iv 

AXTELL,  134 


BARBARY,  13, 14 
BARRS,  183,  184 
BASSETT,  HARRY,  66,  67 
BATTELL,  COL.  JOSEPH,  80,  85, 

107 

BERBER  BARBS,  13 
BELLFOUNDER,  (IMPORTED),  117 

119 

BELLE  MEAD  FARM,  70 
BEND  OR,  70 
BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  10 
BELMONT,  AUGUST,  55 
BEACON  COURSE  (HOBOKEN),  105 
BETSEY  HARRISON,  152,  153 
BEN  BRUSH,  74 
BLACK  HAWK,  88,  90,  106 
BLUE  GRASS,  148,  221 
BLUNT,  WILFRID,  33 
BLACK  DOUGLAS,  112,  139 
BONHEUR,  ROSA,  179 
BOSTON  BLUE,  131 
BOSTON,  56 
BONNER,  ROBERT,  133 
BONNIE  SCOTLAND,  69 
BOX-STALLS,  224 
BOGUS  (LooMis's)  SON  OF  LAME 

BOGUS  BY  ELLIS'S  BOGUS,  SON 

OF  IMP.  TOM  BOGUS,  107 


281 


282 


INDEX 


BOURBON  BELLE,  71 
BRITISH  HORSE,  8 
BREEDING  ON  FARMS,  iv 
BRONCHO  BUSTERS,  238,  263 
BRAMBLE,  69 
BRUTUS  MORGAN,  85 
BREAKING  AND  TRAINING,  262 
BRUCE,  MR.,  142 
BREEDING  TO  A  TYPE,  v 
BUFFALO  BILL,  238 
BULRUSH  MORGAN,  86,  92,  93 
BULLE  ROCK,  40 
BULL  CALF,  131 
BUYING  A  HORSE,  210 
BYERLY  TURK,  25,  40,  80 

CARMON,  170,  174,  175 

CANADA,  9 

CASSIUS  M.  CLAY,  139 

CAVESSON,  265 

CALASH,  10 

CATALAN,  JACK,  190,  198 

CARLYLE,  W.  L.,  176 

CABELL'S  LEXINGTON,  166 

CHANGING  THE  LEAD,  249 

CHARLES  KENT  MARE,  117,  119, 

121 

CIVIL  WAR,  viii,  208,  236 
CIRCUS  TRICKS,  236 
CLAY-KISMET,  145,  177 
CLAY-ARABIAN,  v,  13 
CLEVELAND  BAY,  8,  182 
CLYDESDALE,  v,  178,  182 
CLAY,  HENRY,  190 
CONTINUITY  IN  BREEDING,  vii 
CORTEZ,  8 
COLUMBUS,  8 
CONEY  ISLAND  JOCKEY  CLUB,  70 


COLONIAL  ERA  IN  NEW  ENGLAND, 

10 

COLLIER,  MR.  PRICE,  256,  274 
COMMISSIONS  TO  COACHMEN  AND 

GROOMS,  218 

CONFORMATION  and  ACTION,  272 
CONTINENTAL  RIDERS,  237 
CONESTOGA,  120 
COLEMAN'S  EUREKA,  166 
CRUSADERS,  24 
CRESCEUS,  132,  175 
CUTTING  A  DASH,  258 
CUB  MARE,  41 

DARLEY  ARABIAN,  16,  25,  27,  36, 

40,  80,  101,  168 
DANIEL  LAMBERT,  90 
DAVY  CROCKETT,  166 
DAUMAS,  GENERAL,  18,  22 
DEXTER,  94,  132,  139,  140 
DEALERS,  216,  217 
DE  LANCEY,  COL.,  41,  80 
DENMARK,  v,  13,  27,  69,  129,  130, 

152, 153, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 

161,  163,  166 
DE  LESSEPS,  COUNT  FERDINAND, 

21,  22 

DIOMED,  12,  42,  43,  44 
DOMINO,  72,  73 
DOBBINS,  73 
DOBLE,  BUDD,  94 
DORSEY,  L.  L.,  92 
DOMESTICATION  OF  HORSE,  5 
DRACO,  93 
DRIVING,  251 
DUKE  OF  MAGENTA,  70 
DUKE  OF  MONTROSE,  70 
DUTCHMAN,  104,  105,  132,  133 


INDEX 


283 


ECLIPSE  (AMERICAN),  44,  45,  46, 

47,  48,  49,  50, 100 
ECLIPSE,  29 
EDWIN  FORREST,  13% 
EGYPT,  6 

ELDERLY  RIDERS,  247 
ELECTIONEER,  139 
EMPEROR  OF  NORFOLK,  71 
ENGLISH  RIDERS,  237,  238,  239 
EOCENE  HORSE,  3 
EOLUS,  70 
EQUITATION,  234 
ETHAN  ALLAN,  89,  93,  94,  95,  111, 

175 
EVOLUTION  OF  HORSE,  4 

FALKLAND  ISLAND  HORSES,  5 

FALLS  AND  TUMBLES,  248 

FARM  HORSES,  iv 

FAHIFAX,  JOHN,  189 

FASHION,  56 

FAIR  RACHEL,  41 

FALSETTO,  70 

FERENZI,  71 

FEARNAUGHT,  93 

FEEDING  AND  WATERING,  231, 232 

FELLOWCRAFT,  64 

FIRST  INSTRUCTION  IN  RIDING,  242 

FOREST  DENMARK,  164 

FOUR-IN-HAND,  261 

FOXHALL',  70 

FLYING  CHILDERS,  27,  28,  43 

FLORA  TEMPLE,  94,  106,  110,  111, 

114,  115,  132 
FLEMISH  HORSES,  8 
FLANDERS,  9 

GEORGE  WILKES,  140 


GEORGE  M.  PATCHEN,  111,  112, 

139 

GORDON  HORSE  (MORGAN),  85 
GOLDSMITH  MAID,  132 
GODOLPHIN  BARB,  16,  25,  29,  36, 

80,  102,  168 
GOVERNMENTAL    BREEDING 

FARMS,  vii,  167 
GIFFORD  MORGAN,  91 
GOLDDUST,  32,  91,  92 
GLIDELIA,  69 
GLORIOUS       THUNDER      CLOUD 

(LAWSON'S),  177 
GRAY  EAGLE,  51,  52 
GRAND  BASHAW,  136 
GRENADA,  70 
GRINSTEAD,  70 
GROOMING,  226 
GREEN  MOUNTAIN  MAID,  139 
GRANT,  GENERAL,  32,  141,  209 

HAMILTONIAN     (BISHOP'S),     122, 

123 

HAGGIN,  JAMES  B.,  55,  72 
HAMILTON  BUSBEY,  116,  118,124 
HAMBURG,  71,  73 
HANOVER,  71 
HARRISON  CHIEF,  171 
HARRY  CLAY,  139,  140 
HARNESS  ROOMS,  226 
HATS  AND  GLOVES,  253 
HACKNEY,  v,  185,  186 
HAMBLETONIAN,  77,  79,  92,  96, 

112, 113, 114,  115, 118, 120, 123, 

139 

HEDGEFORD  (IMP.),  152,  153 
HENRY  CLAY,  86,  112,  133,  136, 

137,  171,  175 


284 


INDEX 


HINDOO,  71 

HIGHLAND  DENMARK,  164 

HIMYAB,  70 

HIGHLAND  MAID,  106,  132 

HORSEBACK  RIDING  IN  NORTH, 

viii 

HORSEBACK  RIDING  IN  SOUTH,  ix 
HOLDING  THE  REINS    (RIDING), 

246 
HOLDING  THE  REINS  (DRIVING), 

254,  256 

RONEST  ALLEN,  90 
HOLMES,  DR.  O.  W.,  150 

HUNTINGTON,  RANDOLPH,   13,  30, 

32,  86,  136,  140,  141,  143,  144, 
145 
HYRACOTHERIUM,  3 

IDEAL  HORSES,  272,  273,  274 
INDIAN  RIDERS,  241 
ISHMAEL,  18 
ITALIAN  (JACK),  198 

JAPANESE  CAVALRY,  ix 
JEFFERSON,  PRESIDENT,  31 
JOHN  DILLARD,  166 
JONES,  MR.  J.  L.,  191 
JOCKEYSEAT,  250 
JOGGING,  255 

KATE,  4 

KEENE,  JAMES  R.,  55,  65,  70,  72 

KHALED,  146 

KENTUCKY,  44,  52,  148,  149,  150, 

151,  158,  159, 160, 162, 163,  235, 

236 
KENTUCKY'S    EARLY    STALLIONS, 

53,  54 


KENTUCKY   HUNTER    AND   ONE- 
EYED  KENTUCKY  HUNTER,  107 
KINGFISHER,  70 

LATH,  41 

LADY  SURREY,  86,  137 

LADY  SUFFOLK  (HER    BREEDING 

AND    PERFORMANCE),  105,  106, 

124,  132,  133 
LEOPARD,  32,  141,  146 
LE  COMPTE,  57,  58,  59,  60,  61,  62, 

63 
LEXINGTON,  57,  58,  59,  60,  61,  62, 

63,  64,  65,  66,  142 
LEEDE'S  ARABIAN,  25 
LINDEN  TREE,  141 
LHCE  BEGETS  LIKE,  vi,  39,  128 
LINSLEY,  D.  C.,  79,  82,  85 
LONGFELLOW,  67 
LORILLARD,  P.,  65 
LORD  CLINTON,  90 
Lou  DILLON,  132 
LORD  BRILLIANT,  170 
LUCRETIA  BORGIA,  51 
LUKE  BLACKBURN,  69 

MASSACHUSETTS,  9 
MACE,  DAN,  95 
MAMBRINO,  101,  116,  118,  119 
MAMBRINO  CHIEF,  175 
MAGHREB,  23 

MADAM  TEMPLE,  107,  109,  110 
MARY  SHEPPARD,  146 
MARKHAM'S  ARABIAN,  25,  28 
MAJORCA  (JACK),  198 
MALTESE  (JACK),  198 
MAMMOTH  (JACK),  191 
MAUD  S.,  132 


INDEX 


285 


MESSENGER,  12,  31,  42,  44,  77, 

100,   101,    102,    103,    104,    105, 

120,  136 
MEXICO,  9 

MILLER'S  DAMSEL,  44,  100 
Miss  WOODFORD,  71 
MONGRELS,  vi 
MORGAN,  v,  13,  27,  31,  69,  75,  76, 

79,  129,  146,  151,  171,  173,  175, 

185 

MOORISH  INVASION  OF  SPAIN,  23 
MORRIS,  LEWIS  G.,  116,  119 
MORRILL,  93 
MORGAN,  JUSTIN,  41,  79,  82,  85, 

87,  88,  92 

MORGAN  EAGLE,  91 
MONARCHIST,  70 
MOUNTING  A  COLT,  267 
MONTGOMERY  CHIEF,  164 
MULE   COLTS    (TREATMENT   AND 

FEEDING),  204,  205 
MULES  (FATTENING  FOR  MARKET), 

206 

MUSTANGS,  31 
MULES,  VALUE  OF,  187 

NANCY  HANKS,  132 
NARRAGANSETT  PACER,  10 
NEOHIPPARION,  4 
NEJD,  13,  14 
NEJDEE;  ARABS,  13 
NIMROD,  146 
NORFOLK  TROTTER,  185 
NOSTALGIA    (HOME- SICKNESS)  217 
No  FOOT  NO  HORSE,  228 
NORMANS,  8 

ORLOF,  v,  13,  16,  183,  184,  186 
OSBORN,  PROFESSOR,  9 


PAT  CLEBURNE,  166 

PAUL  PRY,  104 

PATCHEN,  MR.  GEO.  M.,  137 

PATRICK  GIL,  58,  59 

PARTHENON  FRIEZE,  7 

PELHAM,  106,  132 

PEARL  BY  FIRST  CONSUL,  137 

PETER'S  HALCORN,  166 

PERCHERON,  v,  178,  179,  180, 181, 

182 

PHAETON,  65 
PHILIPPINES,  146,  163 
PLUMBING  IN  STABLES,  223 
POLKAN,  183 
POLICE  RIDERS  (N.  Y.  TRAFFIC 

SQUAD),  241 

POSITION  OF  FEET  IN  RIDING,  244 
POITOU  (JACK),  198 
POTOMAC,  153,  154 
PRINCESS,  111,  112 
PRIORESS,  65 
PURDY,  47,  48,  50 

QUINCY,  JOSIAH,  45 

RARUS,  132 

RANDOLPH,  JOHN,  47,  48,  49 

RANDOLPH  HORSE,  85 

RATTLER,  105 

REVOLUTIONARY  WAR,  11,  42 

REVENGE,  85,  86 

RICHARD  OWEN,  3 

RICHARDS,  A.  KEENE  32,  33, 166 

ROMANS,  8 

ROYAL  GIFT,  188 

ROBERT  MCGREGOR,  175,  176 

ROCKINGHAM,  137 

ROXANA,  29 


286 


INDEX 


ROUGH  RIDERS,  239 
RUSSIAN  CAVALRY,  ix 
RUNNING  AWAY,  258,  259 
RYSDYK,  WM.  M.,  117,  121,  123 

SANTO  DOMINGO,  8 

SAMPSON,  101 

SALVATOR,  71,  72 

SALES,  FROM  PRIVATE   STABLES, 

213,  214 

SALMON,  DR.  D.  E.,  167,  176,  177 
SENSATION,  70 
SPRINGBOK,  70 
SPENDTHRIFT,  70 
SHEBA,  QUEEN  OF,  19 
SHERMAN  MORGAN,  85,  87 
SHOW  RING  HORSES,  216 
SHOEING,  229,  230 
SILAS  DEANE,  10 
SIR  ARCHY,  43,  44,  57 
SIR  HENRY,  43,  45, 46, 47,  48,  49, 

100 

SMETANKA,  183,  184 
SOLOMON,  18,  19 
SOUTH  CAROLINA  JOCKEY  CLUB, 

41 

SPANISH  HORSES,  8 
SPEEDWAY  (N.  Y.),  128 
SPURS,  246 

SPIRIT  OF  THE  TIMES,  109 
STOCKTON,  COMMODORE,  56 
STUMP  THE  DEALER,  166 
STANDARD  BRED  TROTTER,  v,  114, 

115,  124,  126,  139 
STABLE  CONSTRUCTION,  220 
STABLE  DRAINAGE,  220 
STABLE  VENTILATION,  220 
STUD  BOOK,  ENGLISH,  25 


ST.  JULIEN,  132 
SUNOL,  132 

TADOUSAC,  9 

TEN  BROECK,  RICHARD,  57,  58. 

63,  64,  65 

TEN  BROECK,  65,  67 
TENNY,  72 

TEYSUL,  KING  OF  NEJD,  31 
THORA,  71 
THE  BARD,  71 
THE  ABBOT,  132 
THOROUGHBRED,  v,  13,  27,  40 
TOM  OCHILTREE,  70 
TOM  HAL,  166 
TOP  GALLANT,  104 
TROUBADOUR,  71 
TRAINING  AND  BREAKING,  262 
TROTTING  HORSE  DRIVERS,  252 
TRACY,  GEN.  BENJ.  R,  129 
TREATMENT  OF  A  TIRED  HORSE, 

227 

TREDWELL,  JOHN,  116,  120 
TURF,  FIELD  AND  FARM,  124,  129 

UNCAS,  70 

UPTON,  MAJOR  ROGER  D.,  30 

VALUE  OF  HORSES  AND   MULES 

IN  U.  S.,  Ill 
VAN  METER'S  WAXY,  166 
VERMONT  MORGAN,  91 
VIRGIL 
VIRGINIA,  9,  40 

WARFIELD,  DR. 
WAGNER,  51,  52 

WALLACE,  WM.  H.,   20,  94,  95, 
124,  126 


INDEX 


287 


WARRANTIES,  215 

WALTERS,  MR.,   OF   BALTIMORE, 

178 

WASHINGTON,  GEORGE,  188,   189 
WARRIOR  (JACK),  190 
WASHING  AND  USE  OF  WATE«» 

228 

WADSWORTH,  GEN.  WM.,  138, 139 
WELLS,  GENERAL,  58 
WEATHERBY,  MESSRS.  25,  101 
WEST  POINT  RIDERS,  240 
WEASEL     MORGAN    OR    FENTON 

HORSE,  85 


WiLDAm,  41 

WlNTHROP  MORRILL,   93 

WOODBURN,  54 

WOODRUFF,    HIRAM,    104,    111, 

119 
WOODBURY  MORGAN,  85,  90 

XENOPHON,  274 

YOUNG  BASHAW,  136,  137 
YOUNG  TRAVELER,  OR  HAWKINS 
HORSE,  85 

ZlLCAADI,  31 


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